Rafik Schami

Rafik Schami was born in Damascus in 1946 and moved to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1971. He studied chemistry in Heidelberg and earned a doctorate in 1979. From 1982 onward, he worked as a freelance writer and published books for children and adults. His best-known works include *A Handful of Stars*, *The Storyteller of the Night*, *The Dark Side of Love*, *The Secret of the Calligrapher*, and *Sophia, or the Beginning of All Stories*. His literary work received numerous awards, including the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize, the Hermann Hesse Prize, the Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize, and the Grand Prize of the German Academy for Children’s and Young People’s Literature. He became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in 2002.