Raoul Schrott was born 1964 in Austria, grew up in Tunisia, studied in Norwich and Paris, was secretary of Philippe Soupault, gained a PhD, teaches Comparative Literature in Tübingen, Bern and Innsbruck and has received most of the major German literary awards. He is the author of many collections of poetry, including Hotels, Tropen, Weissbuch and Die Kunst an nichts zu glauben (a selection from these is forthcoming from Seagull Books); novels, including Finis Terrae, Tristan da Cunha, Die Wüste Lop Nor (published in English as The Desert of Lop by Picador); and essays. His translations include, Gilgamesh, The Iliad, Theogony and Derek Walcott’s Midsummer. His latest work is Erste Erde. Epos (forthcoming in English translation as First Earth. Epic from Seagull), narrates through different characters and voices what we know about our origins, from the Big Bang to the formation of the sun and the earth, the evolution of life up to cave paintings and the invention of writing.