Gunnar Decker, born in 1965, gained his PhD in religious philosophy. He has published a number of highly acclaimed bio-graphies of, for example, Hermann Hesse, Gottfried Benn and Franz Fühmann. His most recent publication is the history book 1965: The Short Summer of East Germany. In addition, he reviews films and is an editor of the Theater der Zeit magazine. In 2016 he was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize by the Berlin Academy of Arts.