Kathrin Schmidt, born in Gotha in 1958, studied social psychology in Jena, worked as a research assistant at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and from 1983 as a child psychologist at the Rüdersdorf District Hospital. In 1985 she moved to Berlin, 1986-1987 special course at the Literature Institute in Leipzig, then child psychologist at the Marzahn Polyclinic. During the turnaround in 1989/90, representative of the United Left at the Berlin Round Table, then editor of the women’s magazine YPSILON, employee of the Berlin Institute for Comparative Social Research and Janus e.V. Since the end of 1994, freelance author with an extensive oeuvre of novels, volumes of poetry and stories. Like the protagonist Helene in her novel Du stirbst nicht (2009), Kathrin Schmidt suffered a stroke, after which she had to reacquire language.