Swiss writer, he was trained in and worked in philosophy. He has taught in Heidelberg, at Berkeley and Harvard and currently teaches in Berlin. He has published a number of books on philosophy under the name Peter Bieri. In 1995 he published his first novel, "Perlmanns Schweigen," under the pseudonym Pascal Mercier, which he used also for "Der Klavierstimmer" (1998). In 2006 the first of his books was published in French, "Train de nuit pour Lisbonne" ('Nachtzug nach Lissabon,' Maren Sell éditions, 2004).