Ursula Hegi

Ursula Johanna Hegi (; May 23, 1946 – July 27, 2026) was a German-born American writer. She was an instructor in the MFA program in creative writing at Stony Brook Southampton.

Life and career Ursula Johanna Koch was born on May 23, 1946, in Büderich, a suburb of Düsseldorf, Germany, a city that was heavily bombed during World War II. Her perception growing up was that the war was avoided as a topic of discussion despite its evidence everywhere, and the Holocaust was a particularly taboo topic. She moved to the United States in 1965, where she married (becoming Ursula Hegi) in 1967 and became a naturalized citizen the same year. She set her third, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in the fictional German town of Burgdorf, using her writing to explore her conflicted feelings about her German heritage. She also had two New York Times Notable Book mentions.

Short stories Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories (1988) Hotel of the Saints (2001)

Children's books Trudi & Pia (2003), with pictures by Gisele Potter

Non-fiction Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America (1998)