Ursula Hegi is a German-born American writer. She is currently an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. She was born Ursula Koch in 1946 in D�sseldorf, Germany, a city that was heavily bombed during World War II. Her perception growing up was that the war was avoided as a topic of discussion despite its evidence everywhere, and The Holocaust was a particularly taboo topic. This had a strong effect on her later writing and her feelings about her German identity. She left West Germany in 1964, at the age of 18. She moved to the United States in 1965, where she married in 1967 and became a naturalized citizen the same year. In 1979, she graduated from the University of New Hampshire with both a bachelor's and master's degree. She was divorced in 1984. The same year, she was hired at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, Washington, near Spokane, Washington, where she became an Associate Professor and taught creative writing and contemporary literature. Hegi's first books were set in the United States. 

May 23rd, 1946 in Germany (Age 79)