György Konrád was born in 1933 in Debrecen, Hungary. A major figure in contemporary European literature, he is currently president of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. “Why not start at zero? Everything that is is more than nothing. Even an obituary can give life: it enriches our emotional terrain, makes us grateful for one more day.” With The Caseworker (1969) and The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power (1974) Konrád established his central role in the opposition. “The setting of my book is grey and dull; this is the consequence of the chosen situation. One fifth of our society lives in misery and it seems that it will go on living in such a situation for a long time.” Seminal works followed: The City Builder (1977), The Loser (1983), Antipolitics (1989), The Stone Clock (1994), The Melancholy of Rebirth (1995), Heritage, and The Invisible Voice (1997). He served as president of PEN International (1990 – 93) and received the Herder Prize in 1983 and German Bookseller’s Peace Prize in 1991. György Konrád lives in Budapest.