Roman Pliske, born in Berlin in 1970, studied history, German and Jewish studies in Heidelberg. He was a headhunter and head of corporate communications for a software manufacturer in Heidelberg, editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine "metamorphosen" and founded Elfenbein Verlag with Ingo Drzecnik in 1995 (now based in Berlin and represented on the internet at www.elfenbein-verlag.de).

After completing his master's degree, he first worked as a freelance journalist ("Die Zeit", "Frankfurter Hefte", "Tagesspiegel") from 1999, then as an editor at Axel-Springer AG, in 2001 as editorial director of VVA Kommunikation in Berlin and Essen, and from 2003 onwards in the chief editorial department of "bücher", Germany's biggest book magazine on the newsstand.

Since October 2004 he has been managing director, and since 2005 managing partner, of Mitteldeutscher Verlag, which was founded in Halle (Saale) in 1946. It was one of the largest fiction publishers in the GDR. Since 2005, the publishing house has increasingly focused on international literature; art illustrated books are as much a part of the programme as contemporary non-fiction and travel publications. In the past 75 years, about 4,000 titles by over 1,000 authors have been published. Today, the independent publishing house is once again one of the largest in East Germany. About 150 novelties are published annually.

Roman Pliske has five children and lives with his partner in Halle (Saale).