Karl Heinz Bohrer studied History, Philosophy, German literature, and Sociology. In 1962 he completed his studies with a doctoral thesis on the Geschichtsphilosophie of the German Romantics at the University of Heidelberg, followed in 1978 by a Habilitation at the University of Bielefeld with a study on the early works of Ernst Jünger. Until 1974, Bohrer was literary editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), thereafter he worked for the same paper as a foreign correspondent in London. The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung awarded him its Johann Heinrich Merck Prize for his London essays. In 1982 he was appointed Professor for Modern German Literary History at the University of Bielefeld and in 1983 he succeeded Hans Schwab-Felisch as editor of Merkur. The recipient of the 2007 Heinrich-Mann Prize now lives in Paris and London. Among his many publications are Großer Stil (2007); Temporalität und Form (2004); and Imaginationen des Bösen (2004).