Lutz Seiler grew up in the Langenberg district of Gera, Thuringia (former East Germany). After training as a skilled building construction worker, he worked as a bricklayer and carpenter. During his national service in the National People’s Army (NVA) of the DDR, he started to take an interest in literature and wrote his first poems. In the summer of 1989 Seiler worked as a seasonal employee on the island of Hiddensee, a popular former East German holiday resort located west of the island of Rügen off the north-eastern coast of Germany, an experience that later formed the basis of his first novel published in 2014, Kruso. Seiler read German Studies at the universities of Halle (Saale) and Berlin up to 1990. His 2014 debut novel, Kruso, won numerous awards. Lutz Seiler is considered one of the most important German-speaking poets of today.