is a writer of Chilean origin. He won numerous awards for novels like Santiago Cero (1990), El lugar donde estuvo el Paraíso (1996), El desierto (2005) and Almuerzo de vampiros (2007). Apart from most European languages, his work was also translated in Turkish, Hebrew and Chinese. Besides novels, Franz publishes short stories and essays, such as the collection La muralla enterrada (2001), highly praised and awarded in his own country. He regularly contributes to newspapers such as El País and La Nación (Buenos Aires), and journals, like the Spanish Letras Libres. In 2000 he was invited to be ‘Artist in Residence’ in Berlin by the Deutsche Akademische Austausch Dienst. After that, he was, among others things, Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University and Honorary Research Fellow at King’s College, London.