Rolf Heimann gained his formative education during the war and postwar years in East Germany. At fifteen he escaped to West Germany alone. He undertook an apprenticeship in cabinet-making, attended art school and worked in advertising. After emigrating to Australia he worked in factories, on the land and with the railways. Interested in wild and marine life, Heimann has been a campaigner for conservation and an anti-nuclear world, publishing a work on Australian fish (The Fishbook, 1970).
Heimann has also worked as an illustrator, and has been widely known in Australia as the cartoonist 'Lofo', his cartoons included in Nation Review, Chain Reaction, Access, Overland as well as Punch and other overseas magazines. Some of his work has been read on Radio 3CR. He has published more than thirty books - among them puzzle, game and maze books such as Rolf Heineman's Bizarre Brainbenders (1992) - and several have been translated into other languages and have sold over 3 million copies worldwide.
