Vladimir Vertlib was born in 1966 into a Russian-Jewish family in Leningrad (USSR, today St. Petersburg). His parents were members of an illegal Zionist organisation. In 1971, the family emigrated, travelling across Israel, the Netherlands, the USA and Italy until they settled in Austria in 1981. Vertilb studied Economics in Vienna and was granted Austrian citizenship in 1986. He worked as a freelancer for the Japanese news agency, Kyodo News Service, and then as a statistician for the Austrian Kontrollbank. He has worked as an independent author, journalist and translator.
Learn more about him at http://www.literaturfestival.com/participants/authors/2010/vladimir-vertlib