OFIR TOUCHE GAFLA was born in Israel. His first novel, "The World of the End, " was published in 2004 and became a bestseller and a cult book, winning the 2005 Geffen Award for the best fantasy/science fiction novel of the year and the 2006 Kugel Award for Hebrew literature. His later novels include "The Cataract in the Mind s Eye", " Behind the Fog", and "The Day the Music Died". He teaches creative writing in the Sam Spiegel School of TV and Cinema in Jerusalem.