Freiherr Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Knigge was a German writer, Freemason, and a leading member of the Order of the Illuminati.
Christoph Martin Wieland was a German poet and writer. He is best-remembered for having written the first Bildungsroman, as well as the epic Oberon, which formed the basis for Carl Maria von Weber's opera of the same name. His thought was representative of the cosmopolitanism of the German Enlightenment, exemplified in his remark: "Only a true cosmopolitan can be a good citizen."
Janosch is a German children's author and illustrator.
Patrick Süskind is a German writer and screenwriter, known best for his novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, first published in 1985.
Peter Glotz was a German social democratic politician and social scientist.
Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé, was a French cartoonist. He is known for the series of children's books he created with René Goscinny, Le Petit Nicolas, and also for his poster-like illustrations, usually drawn from a distant or high viewpoint depicting detailed countrysides or cities. For decades, he created covers for The New Yorker.
Bernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader, which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize.
Jean-Thomas "Tomi" Ungerer was an Alsatian artist and writer. He published over 140 books ranging from children's books to adult works and from the fantastic to the autobiographical. He was known for sharp social satire and witty aphorisms. Ungerer is also famous as a cartoonist and designer of political posters and film posters.
Richard Beer-Hofmann was an Austrian dramatist and poet.
Franz Eugen Schlachter was a revivalist preacher, classical scholar and the translator of the German language Schlachter Bible.
Michael Hofmann is a German-born poet who writes in English and is a translator of texts from German.
Michael Sattler was a monk who left the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation to become one of the early leaders of the Anabaptist movement. He was particularly influential for his role in developing the Schleitheim Confession.
Maximilian Maria Carl Joseph Gabriel Lamoral, 7th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, full German name: Maximilian Maria Carl Joseph Gabriel Lamoral Fürst von Thurn und Taxis was the seventh Prince of Thurn and Taxis and Head of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis from 10 November 1871 until his death on 2 June 1885.
Der Kontrabaß is a play by Patrick Süskind. The monologue in one act premiered in 1981.
The Diogenes Verlag is a Swiss publisher in Zurich, founded in 1952 by Daniel Keel, with a focus on literature, plays and cartoons. It has been managed since 2012 by the founder's son, Philipp Keel.
Benedict Wells is a German-Swiss novelist.
Lukas Hartmann is a Swiss novelist and children's writer, who is well known in German-speaking countries. Married to the 2015 Swiss president Simonetta Sommaruga, he was Switzerland's "first gentleman" in 2015 and 2020.
Hans Werner Kettenbach was a German journalist and writer.
Chaval, civil name Yvan Francis Le Louarn, was a French caricaturist and cartoonist. German editions of his oeuvre were mostly published by Diogenes Verlag.
Marie (Mary) Donald Hottinger, née Mackie, was a Scottish translator and editor. In the German-speaking world she is primarily known as the editor of various anthologies of crime, ghost and horror stories and translating non-fiction Escape to Life. Her three-volume standard work with the titles Mord, Mehr Morde and Even more Morde, has been reprinted often since the end of the 1950s, brought the Anglo-Saxon crime story and compilation of stories to a literary art form.
