German · 1965–2013
Wolfgang Herrndorf was a German writer and painter. He trained as a painter in Nuremberg and worked as an illustrator before turning to fiction. His first novel, In Plüschgewittern, appeared in 2002. He became widely known with Tschick (2010), the story of two teenage boys who travel across eastern Germany in a stolen car. The novel sold millions of copies, was adapted for the stage and for film, and is read in German schools. In 2010 he learned that he had an incurable brain tumour. He wrote his novel Sand (2011) during his illness, and it won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. He also kept a blog, Arbeit und Struktur, about his illness and work, which was published as a book after his death. He died by suicide in Berlin in August 2013. His unfinished novel Bilder deiner großen Liebe appeared in 2014.