Axel Haase, born 1953 in Hanover, studied modern German literature, history and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin from 1975 to 1982 and took his Magister degree in 1983. Between 1984 and 1996 he was a freelance editor and translator from English. In 1987, he participated in the Editors’ Seminar of the School of the German Book Trade and in 1989 he completed a nine-month traineeship at Piper Verlag in Munich. From 1996-1997 he was a permanent employee at Rotbuch/Europäische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, responsible for rights and licences. In 1997 he founded Frahlingur Herbach & Haase in Berlin together with KP Herbach. Since then he has been working there as managing director. In addition to representing authors in the field of literature, he and a colleague are responsible for the subsidiary rights of some German publishers without their own licensing department as well as the German-language licensing rights of some international agencies. Since 2004, he has been a member of the board of the Berlin literature venue Buchhändlerkeller.