Ladislav Grosman (1921–81) was born in Humenné, Slovakia to a Jewish family; because of this he spent two years of World War II in a forced labor camp. After the war he moved to Prague to study, eventually earning a doctorate in psychology before turning his attention to writing fiction and screenplays. Shortly after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he emigrated to Israel, where he would spend the rest of his days teaching Slavic literature and creative writing at Bar-Ilan University.