Max Temmerman (Brasschaat, 1975) made his debut in 2011 with the acclaimed poetry collection Vaderland, which earned him a nomination for the 2012 C. Buddingh’ Prize. In October 2013, he published the successful follow-up, Bijna een Amerika, which won the Herman de Coninck Audience Award and was nominated for both the Jo Peeters Poetry Prize (2014) and the J.C. Bloem Prize (2015). Subsequent collections followed, and in January 2017 he released the audiobook De meeste mensen die ik ooit ben geweest, featuring a selection of fifty poems read by actor Gene Bervoets.

In 2020, Temmerman expanded into fiction with his debut novel Coniferen, a dark tale that combines the propulsive pace of a Simenon story with his own poetic voice. Coniferen was nominated for the Bronzen Uil Debut Prize and was quickly followed by additional novels.