Born in 1965, Claudia Sinnig grew up in Gotha. She studied Russian and English in Leipzig and Lithuanian in Vilnius. In 1992, she obtained a doctorate in Lithuanian literature. 

In 1989, she was co-founder of the Lithuanian Review, the English-language newspaper of the Lithuanian indepence movement Sąjūdis, and a member of Lithuania’s first women studies‘ circle in Vilnius; in 1990, she volunteered as an aide in the information office of Lithuania’s first post-Soviet parliament. 

Since 1992, she has been working as a freelance writer and translator. She translated, among others, Tomas Venclova, Jonas Mekas, Eugenijus Ališanka, Sigitas Parulskis, Irena Veisaitė as well as Antanas Škėma into German, and published, in 2002, Litauen. Ein literarischer Reisebegleiter (Lithuania. A Literary Travel Companion). 

Claudia Sinnig lives in Wuhden on the German-Polish border, east of Berlin.