Arno Geiger grew up in the Austrian Alps, in a village overlooking Lake Constance. His grandparents were farmers, his father was the local government clerk and his mother a primary school teacher. He studied German and comparative literature at university and his debut novel appeared in 1997. In 2005, he was awarded the inaugural German Book Prize, and his writing has won numerous other prizes. His autobiographical novel The Old King in His Exile was translated into twenty-eight languages and won several literary prizes.
He is married and lives in Vienna.
Jamie Bulloch has translated almost fifty books from German, including works by Timur Vermes, Robert Menasse, Sebastian Fitzek and Daniela Krien. His translation of Birgit Vanderbeke's The Mussel Feast won the 2014 Schlegel-Tieck Prize, an award for which he has been runner-up on two further occasions. He is also the author of Karl Renner: Austria. Jamie lives in London with his wife and three daughters.