Roswitha Quadflieg was born in Zürich in 1949 and grew up in Hamburg, where she studied painting, graphic art, illustration and typography. In 1973 she founded the Raamin-Presse, a small press workshop in Schenefeld. There she printed works of world literature with her own original graphics in limited editions. The press produced 28 prints before she closed it in 2003, and it received the Hamburg publishers' prize in 1998.
Her name sits on The Neverending Story as illustrator and designer, not as author of the text. For the 1979 first edition from Thienemann she supplied the lettering and pictures, and the book was printed in two colours with 26 illustrations. She also illustrated two other Michael Ende titles, Das kleine Lumpenkasperle and Lirum Larum Willi Warum.
Since 1985 she has also been a writer, and since 2003 she has written full time. Her debut, Der Tod meines Bruders, was a family report on a death. Later came novels, plays, radio dramas and screenplays. Her novel Bis dann became a ZDF film in 1998 under the title Eine Herzensangelegenheit. Her recent books include the novel Ihr wart doch meine Feinde (2022) and Ich will lieber schweigen (2025). The latter publishes the 1945/46 diary of her father, the actor Will Quadflieg, with her own questions beside it. She is a member of PEN Germany.
Start with The Neverending Story, in Ralph Manheim's English translation. It is the book where her design work is most widely seen. Her own writing is in German, so readers of German can go on to Ihr wart doch meine Feinde.
