Anna Funder was born in Melbourne in 1966 and completed her schooling in both Paris, France, and Melbourne. Her relationship with Germany developed as she learned the German language at school. Initially, she trained and worked as a lawyer then as a documentary filmmaker before completing post-graduate studies in creative writing at the University of Melbourne. However, Funder was the recipient of a German Government scholarship to study at the Free University of Berlin in the 1980s, before the wall between East and West had been removed. Funder returned to Germany in 1997 after receiving financial assistance to spend time as a writer in residence at the Australia Centre in Potsdam. It was during this time that Funder met Miriam Weber, which was the catalyst for writing the book that would be published as Stasiland in 2002.

A string of awards highlights Funder’s talent; she won the Miles Franklin Prize, the Barbara Jefferis Prize, the Indie Best Debut Fiction, The Indie Book of the Year 2012, the ABIA Best Literary Fiction, the ABIA Book of the Year 2012, the Neilsen Book Data 2012 Booksellers’ Choice Award and the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize. Aside from the accolades, Funder’s stirring texts are shaped by her time as an international lawyer for the Australian Government, where she was focused on human rights, constitutional law, and treaty negotiation, and demonstrate her willingness to question the human condition. Common themes of power and resistance, overcoming trauma and repairing, and reconciliation are present in her work.

In 2011 Anna was appointed to the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. She now lives in Sydney.