Dramatist, essayist and writer Sasha Marianna Salzmann (1985) was born in Wolgograd in the Soviet Union. Living in Moscow until she was ten years old, she moved to Germany as a Jewish refugee, carrying a suitcase full of books. She started writing plays and books at a young age. Her debut novel (about twins who leave Moscow for the West at a young age and are raised in a home for asylum seekers), which came out in 2017, won her the Jürgen Ponto Foundation’s prize for literature.