Peter Schneider

Born in 1940 and raised in southern Germany, Peter Schneider has greatly contributed to the literary and cultural life of Germany over the last four decades. After finishing his studies in German, history, and philosophy in 1964, Schneider became a key figure in the 1968 student protest movements in Berlin and Turin, Italy. Mr. Schneider began his career as a writer with his novel Lenz (1973). After the success of Lenz in Germany, over 20 other novels, screenplays, and volumes of journalistic essays followed, including several that were translated into English: Der Mauerspringer (The Wall Jumper, 1984; a story about people who jump the Berlin Wall in both directions) and Extreme Mittelage (The German Comedy, 1990; stories and essays about the situation right after the fall of the Berlin Wall), as well as Paarungen (Couplings, 1996) and Eduards Heimkehr (Edward’s Homecoming, 2000), both Berlin novels. Schneider’s screenplays were filmed by Reinhard Hauff (Messer im Kopf ) and Margarethe von Trotta (Das Versprechen). His essays can be found in Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, New York Times, Time magazine, and Le Monde.

Mr. Schneider has served as a guest professor at Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Harvard. During the 1996–97 academic year, Mr. Schneider was awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Mr. Schneider serves as the Roth Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown University.

Peter Schneider lives in Berlin and Italy with his wife and children.