Erwin Koch, currently a freelance journalist in Switzerland, is the author of six books. He has twice received the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for German-language journalism (1988 and 1996) and was also awarded the Mara Cassens Prize for his first novel, Sara tanzt, in 2003. Notable among his other works are the novel Der Flambeur and the finely wrought journalistic collection Vor der Tagesschau, an einem spaeten Sonntagnachmittag. Koch's work is often set against a backdrop of current political or social issues in Europe or the United States, but its focus is typically on the personality and psychology of individuals instead of ideologies.