Robert Menasse is an Austrian writer. As an undergraduate, Menasse studied German studies, philosophy and political science in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina. In 1980 he completed his PhD thesis "Der Typus des Au�enseiters im Literaturbetrieb. Am Beispiel Hermann Sch�rrer". Between 1981 and 1988 Menasse worked as a junior lecturer at the Institute of Literature Theory at the University of S�o Paulo, Brazil. He has been working as a freelance publicist, columnist and translator of novels from Portuguese into German ever since. His first novel Sinnliche Gewissheit, published in 1988, is a semi-autobiographical tale of Austrians living in exile in Brazil. The magazine Literatur und Kritik published Menasse's first poem in 1989. His later novels were Selige Zeiten, br�chige Welt, Schubumkehr and Die Vertreibung aus der H�lle. In 1990 Robert Menasse was the first writer to be awarded the Heimito von Doderer Prize. Since returning to Europe from Brazil, Menasse has mainly lived in the cities of Berlin, Vienna and Amsterdam. He currently lives in Vienna and is married. [More at Wikipedia]

June 21st, 1954 in Vienna (Age 70)