The works of Stefan Heym are widely read in both parts of Germany and abroad. Since the beginning of his literary career in 1942 his major themes have been unconditional antifascism and the improvement of the human condition through democratic socialism. Almost all of Heym's more than thirty published prose works concern themselves in some fashion with Germany.

In his writings Heym has always tried to tell the truth as he sees it and to fight against violence and injustice. According to the critic Peter Mallwitz, "Heym ist lebendige Kritik seiner Zeit. Sein Leben ist Polemik im aufklärerischen Sinn sozial-revolutionärer Vorfahren" (Heym is living criticism of his time. His life is polemics in the enlightenment tradition of his social-revolutionary predecessors).

Heym was born Helmut Flieg on 10 April 1913 in the industrial town of Chemnitz (now Karl-Marx-Stadt), Germany, to Daniel Flieg, a businessman, and Else Primo Flieg...