ISLE AICHINGER was born in 1921 and died in 2016. She spent her childhood in Linz and Vienna, where her family was subjected to Nazi persecution starting in 1933. Aichinger began to study medicine in 1945, while she also devoted time to writing. Her first novel, Das vierte Tor, was published the same year. After studying for five semesters, Aichinger interrupted her studies in medicine to finish her second novel, Die größere Hoffnung. In 1955, she was awarded the Immermann-Preis by the city of Düsseldorf, and in 1956, she joined the Akademie der Künste of Berlín. In 1957 Aichinger won the Literaturpreis der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, and in 1971 she was awarded the Nelly-Sachs-Preis. In 1987 she received the Europalia-Literatur-Preis, and in 1991 she was awarded the Großer Literaturpreis of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste|Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste. Other honors included the Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis für Literatur in 1995 and the 2001 Joseph-Breitbach-Preis, which she received along with W. G. Sebald and Markus Werner. She is the author of many prose, poetry, and drama volumes. Her work appeared for the first time in Spanish in Sirema: Poetry, Art, and Criticism (Johns Hopkins UP, 2009:2) with the writer's permission, translated by Isabel García Adánez, and edited by Jorge R. G. Sagastume.