Dr Gunnar Decker, born in 1965 in Kühlungsborn, grew up in Bad Doberan, where he graduated from high school in 1983. He works as an author and journalist and lives in Berlin.

From 1983 to 1985, he completed his basic military service with the NVA armoured forces in Eggesin/Torgelow. He then studied philosophy at Berlin's Humboldt University from 1985 to 1990 and gained his doctorate in 1994 with a thesis on the history of heretics. As a journalist and author, he has published numerous biographies, including ‘Gottfried Benn. Genius and Barbarian’, ’Franz Fühmann. The Art of Failure’, ’Hermann Hesse. The Wanderer and his Shadow’, ’Francis of Assisi. The dream of a simple life’, ’Vincent van Gogh. Pilgrimage to the Sun’ or ’Ernst Barlach. The Floating Man’. He also published the history books ‘1965. Der kurze Sommer der DDR’ and ‘Zwischen den Zeiten. The late years of the GDR’.

Together with his wife Kerstin Decker, he published the reportage and portrait books ‘Gefühlsausbrüche oder Ewig pubertiert der Ostdeutsche’, ‘Letzte Ausfahrt Ost. Die DDR im Rückspiegel’ and ’Die unentwickelte Kunst zu erben. A lesson in German’. In 2016, he received the Heinrich Mann Prize awarded by the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 2023, Siedler Verlag published the biography ‘Rilke. Der ferne Magier’, and “Rilke in der Schweiz” will be published by Insel Verlag in 2025. At Schloss Wiepersdorf, he will be working on his biography ‘Erik Neutsch. The last Jacobin’.