Sasha Marianna Salzmann is a playwright, essayist, curator, and writer in residence of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. They are a cofounder of the culture magazine freitext and were the artistic director of Studio Я from 2013 to 2015. They also cofounded NIDS – New Institute for Drama, where they give workshops on political writing. Their work has been translated, performed, and bestowed awards in more than twenty countries. Their first novel, Beside Myself, won the Mara Cassens Prize and the Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung Prize for best debut novel, was short-listed for the 2017 German Book Prize, and has been translated into fifteen languages.