Born in 1965 in Duisburg, Dirk Stermann has lived in Vienna since 1987. He is one of Austria’s most popular cabaret artists and television presenters, and is also widely known in Germany through television and radio shows as well as cinema films and stage programmes — both as a solo performer and as part of the duo Stermann & Grissemann with Christoph Grissemann. Since May 2007, he has co-hosted the weekly late-night show Willkommen Österreich alongside Grissemann.
With his novels Sechs Österreicher unter den ersten fünf (2010), Stoß im Himmel (2013), Der Junge bekommt das Gute zuletzt (2016), Der Hammer (2019), and Maksym (2022), Dirk Stermann has established himself as a successful novelist in German-language fiction. In 2016, Die Welt remarked: “A funny German media star who deserves to be taken very seriously as an Austrian novelist.” In October 2023, his novel Mir geht’s gut, wenn nicht heute, dann morgen was published, exploring the life of psychoanalyst Erika Freeman. His next novel, Die Republik der Irren, followed in 2025.
His first solo cabaret programme, Zusammenbraut, was awarded the “Salzburger Stier” in 2024. In 2026, his second solo show, 20 Spritzer bis Amstetten, celebrated its premiere at Vienna’s Rabenhoftheater.