Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for
Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published
Cracks in the Wall, a nonfiction book about China.
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, his first novel, became an international best seller, and was followed by two sequels,
A Well-Tempered Heart and
The Heart Remembers. He lives in Potsdam with his family.
Imogen Taylor was born in London in 1978 and has lived in Berlin since 2001. She is the translator of Sascha Arango, Dirk Kurbjuweit, and Melanie Raabe, among others. Her translation of Sasha Marianna Salzmann's
Beside Myself (Other Press, 2020) was short-listed for the 2021 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize and the 2020 Schlegel-Tieck Prize.