Wolfgang Hilbig (1941–2007) was one of Germany’s most important contemporary writers. His early work stands as one of East Germany’s richest literary legacies. In 2003 he was awarded Germany’s Büchner Prize for his life’s work. His only major work to appear in English in his lifetime was the novella Knacker’s Yard, published in Grand Street 48. Hilbig moved to West Germany in 1985, but remained a profoundly East German writer until his death from cancer at age sixty-five. He is buried in the Dorotheenstädtischen cemetery in Berlin.

His AGNI story “The Abandoned Factory,” translated by Isabel Fargo Cole, was reprinted in Harper’s in July 2003.