Sybil Gräfin Schönfeldt (1927–2022)

Sybil Countess Schönfeldt is the daughter of Carl Graf von Schönfeldt and his first wife Carmen Sackermann, aristocrats of Austrian-German origin. She grew up in Nassau on the Lahn, Göttingen and Berlin. In 1944, she was drafted into the German Reich Labor Service in Upper Silesia. After World War II, she studied German literature and art history in Göttingen, Heidelberg, Hamburg. and Vienna, earning a doctorate in 1951. In 1957, she married Heinrich Schlepegrell, with whom she had two sons. She has worked as an editor and freelance journalist for Time magazine and other periodicals, and is the author of many books for children and adults. She is the recipient of the German Youth Literature Prize and the European Youth Book Prize.