Urs Allemann was born in the city of Schlieren, near Zurich, Switzerland, in 1948. From 1986 to 2004 he directed the section of culture and literature of the Swiss journal of Basle (Basler Zeitung). He has published three books of narrative and several works of poetry, including: Fuzzhase (1988), Holder die Polder (2001), sch n, sch n! (2003), and Im Kinde schwirren die Ahnen (2008). He currently lives in Bettingen in Basle. Patrick Greaney is assistant professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Stunning, exquisite, perfect, and difficult... makes literature that pre-dates it seem deprived. Dennis Cooper