About the Play:
Helen of Troy (Revised) - Das Opfer Helena - was first performed as a radio play in 1955 and soon thereafter won a prize from a German war veteran's group. It was staged as a two-act play in 1965, and even later set to music. The piece is more timely than ever, given recent events in U.S. and world history.

About the Author:
Wolfgang Hildesheimer (1916-1991) was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of a middle-class Jewish family. Hildesheimer lived in both England and what is now Israel after emigrating when Hitler came to power in 1933. He would later return to Germany as an interpreter for the Nuremberg war trials.

Along the way he studied carpentry, drawing, stage design and interior design. In post-war Germany he was a member of the the 47 Group, an iconoclastic association of young writers (including Heinrich Böll, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Arno Schmidt, Peter Weiss and Günter Grass). In 1957, Hildesheimer moved to Switzerland, where he lived until his death in 1991.

Hildesheimer is probably best known in English-speaking countries for his biography of Mozart, but he also wrote numerous novels (Marbot, Tynset), short stories (Loveless Legends), translations and essays. In the 1980s, he gave up writing for publication, and concentrated instead on his book illustrations, paintings, drawings and prints.