Christian Schünemann, born 1968 in Bremen, studied Slavic philology in Berlin and Saint Petersburg, worked in Moscow and Bosnia-Herzegovina and gained a diploma from the Evangelist School of Journalism in Berlin. He received the ›Helmut Stegmann Prize‹ in 2001 for an article published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In 2002, an excerpt from the novel The Hairdresser was awarded a prize at the international young authors' competition, ›Open Mike‹. Christian Schünemann lives in Berlin.