Sigrid Damm, born in Gotha, Thuringia, lives as a freelance writer in Berlin and Mecklenburg. In 2010 she became honorary citizen of her home town Gotha, as the first woman.

The author is a member of the German P.E.N. and the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature.

She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Feuchtwanger, Mörike and Fontane Prizes. Her literary works focus mainly on the German classic writers of the 18^th century; Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Wieland and Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz from Livland, among them Vögel, die verkünden Land of which we have included the first two chapters.