Born in 1970 in Washington, D.C., Andrew Sean Greer studied creative writing at Brown University and earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Montana. Greer published stories in literary magazines, before his first collection of short stories was published. He wrote a number of respected novels within a few years. In 2001 his first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published. His second one, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, followed three years later. It became an international best-seller and brought Greer critical success. His next novel, The Story of a Marriage, was published in 2008. It tells the story of a triangular relationship in the 1950s. Greer's latest novel, The Impossible Lives of Great Wells, is scheduled to appear in June 2013 in the U.S. Andrew Sean Greer lives in San Francisco.

Greer has received numerous awards for his literary work, including a Northern California Book Award, a California Book Award, a New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library.

The Samuel Fischer Visiting Professorship at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature

The Samuel Fischer Visiting Professorship was established in 1998 at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with S. Fischer publishers, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Freie Universität Berlin, and the Lecture Forum of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Writers from different literatures and cultures are invited to teach for one semester at Freie Universität Berlin.

Times and Locations

Reading at the English Theatre

• Monday, November 26, 8 p.m.
• Fidicinstraße 40, Berlin-Kreuzberg

Inaugural Lecture

• December 12, 6 p.m.
• Freie Universität Berlin, Humanities Building, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, Room KL 32/202, 14195 Berlin; subway stations: Thielplatz and Dahlem-Dorf (U3)