Born in East Berlin in 1951, Katja Lange-Müller is one of the most idiosyncratic voices in contemporary German literature. Her mother was a prominent politician in East Germany prior to reunification. At 16, she was expelled from school because of “unsocialistic” behavior. She worked first as an editor and photo editor and then as a nurse auxiliary in psychiatric institutions in Berlin before being approved to study literature. She then spent a year in Mongolia as a student resident.

Katja has been a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry since 2000 and a member of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin since 2001. After leaving the PEN Center Deutschland as in protest, she founded the PEN Center in Berlin with some of her colleagues.