Richard Zim­ler was born in New York in 1956 and now resides in Por­to, Por­tu­gal. His twelve nov­els have been trans­lat­ed into twen­ty-three lan­guages and have appeared on best­seller lists in twelve dif­fer­ent coun­tries, includ­ing the Unit­ed States, the UK, Aus­tralia, Brazil, Italy,and Por­tu­gal. Five of his works have been nom­i­nat­ed for the Inter­na­tion­al Dublin Lit­er­ary Award, the rich­est prize in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world, and he has won sev­er­al oth­er acco­lades for his fic­tion across Europe and North America.