Joachim Helfer

Joachim Helfer lives in Berlin where he works as a writer, journalist and translator from English. He lived in civil union with a man and is raising two daughters with a woman. His prose continues the genre of the coming-of-age novel in a modern form; his themes are homosexuality and education. Helfer received the 1992 and 1999 Hamburg Literaturförderpreis and the Irmgard Heilmann-Preis in 2000. His book What Makes a Man? Sex Talk in Beirut and Berlin (2006), written with author Rashid al-Daif, received special attention at home and abroad.

As of November 2019