Erwin Koch, the author of seven books, is a Swiss journalist. He is the two-time recipient of the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for German-language journalism (1988 and 1996); his carefully constructed, dystopian first novel, Sara tanzt (Sara dances), was awarded the Mara Cassens Prize for the best first novel of 2003. Notable among his works are the riveting novel Der Flambeur (The flimflam flambeur), based on the difficult life of a Swiss-German entrepreneur, and the finely wrought journalistic collection Vor der Tagesschau, an einem späten Sonntagnachmittag (Late Sunday afternoon, just before the news). His most recent publication is a collaborative work about a Swiss monastery with the photographer Giorgio von Arb.