Peter Schneider is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 novelist.

Life

Peter Schneider is the son of a conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. He spent his early childhood in Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 and Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

; from 1945 to 1950 he lived in Grainau

Grainau

Grainau is a municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the foot of the Zugspitze mountain, the tallest mountain in Germany in the sub-mountain range of the Wetterstein Alps which is a branch off the main mountain range it is connected to, the...

 near Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a mountain resort town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Oberbayern region, and the district is on the border with Austria...

 and from 1950 in Freiburg im Breisgau

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

. After gaining his Abitur

Abitur

Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...

 in 1959 he studied German, History and Philosophy at the Universities

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 of Freiburg and Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. In 1962 he continued his studies at the Free University of Berlin

Free University of Berlin

Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...

. In the Federal election campaign of 1965 he worked together with a number of well-known writers in the electoral office "Wahlkampfkontor" of the SPD

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

.

During the 1960s Schneider experienced a political radicalisation that led him to become one of the spokespersons and organisers of the Berlin German student movement

German student movement

The German student movement was a protest movement that took place during the late 1960s in West Germany. It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, and the poor living conditions of students...

. In 1967 he was involved in the preparation of the so-called "Springer-Tribunal

Axel Springer

Axel Springer , was a German journalist and the founder and owner of the Axel Springer AG publishing company.-Early life:...

". He was a member of a group aiming to found a proletarian

Proletariat

The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...

 political party and rouse the working-class. For this reason Schneider worked temporarily as an unskilled worker in one of the Bosch

Robert Bosch GmbH

Robert Bosch GmbH is a multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components...

-factories. Later he taught in a private school

Private school

Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...

 and did freelance work in broadcasting. In 1972 he took his degree, but in 1973 the education authorities in Berlin refused to appoint him as a trainee teacher on account of his political activity. This decision was only overturned by a Berlin court decision in 1976.

Having in the meantime established himself as a writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, Schneider gave up the idea of teaching. His novel Lenz, published in 1973, had become a cult text for the Left, capturing the feelings of those disappointed by the failure of their utopian revolt. Since then, Peter Schneider has written novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s, short stories

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 and film scripts

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

, that often deal with the fate of members of his generation. Other works deal with the situation of Berlin before and after German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

. Schneider is also a major Essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

ist; having moved away from the radicalism of 1968, his work now appears predominantly in bourgeois publications. Schneider has frequently held posts as visiting professor or writer in residence at universities in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 including Stanford

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and Princeton

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. Since 2001, he has been the Roth Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

. He lives in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

Peter Schneider is a member of the German PEN

International PEN

PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....

-Club. He is a recipient of a Villa Massimo scholarship

Villa Massimo

Villa Massimo, short for Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo , is a German art institute in Rome, established in 1910 and located in the Villa Massimo....

 (1979) and the Förderpreis für Literatur des Kulturkreises of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (1983).

Works

• Ansprachen, Berlin 1970
• Kulturrevolution, 's Gravenhage 1973 (with Walter Kreipe)
• Lenz, Berlin 1973
• Schon bist du ein Verfassungsfeind, Berlin 1975
• Atempause, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1977
• Die Wette, Berlin 1978
• Messer im Kopf, Berlin 1979
• Die Botschaft des Pferdekopfs und andere Essais aus einem friedlichen Jahrzehnt, Darmstadt u. a. 1981
• Der Mauerspringer, Darmstadt u. a. 1982
• Niemands Land, Berlin 1982 (zusammen mit Monika Hasse)
• Ratte – tot, Darmstadt u. a. 1985 (with Peter-Jürgen Boock
  Peter-Jürgen Boock
  Peter-Jürgen Boock is a former member of the Red Army Faction.-Earlier life:After completing secondary school, Boock began training as a mechanic but soon quit. Claiming that his father was a staunch Nazi, Boock then left his parents’ home and travelled to the Netherlands...
  
  )
• Totoloque, Darmstadt u. a. 1985
• Das Ende der Befangenheit?, Paderborn 1987
• Vati, Darmstadt u. a. 1987
• Deutsche Ängste, Darmstadt 1988
• Extreme Mittellage, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990
• Nicaragua – oder Die Arbeit der Ameisen am Fuße der Wahrheit, Basel u. a. 1990
• Wie die Spree in den Bosporus fließt, Berlin 1991 (with Aras Ören)
• Leyla und Medjnun, Berlin 1992 (with Aras Ören)
• Paarungen, Berlin 1992
• Vom Ende der Gewißheit, Berlin 1994
• Das Versprechen oder Die Jahre der Mauer, Berlin 1995 (with Margarethe von Trotta)
• Eduards Heimkehr, Berlin 1999
• Die Diktatur der Geschwindigkeit, Berlin 2000
• "Und wenn wir nur eine Stunde gewinnen ..." Wie ein jüdischer Musiker die Nazi-Jahre überlebte., Berlin 2001
• Das Fest der Missverständnisse, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2003
• Skylla, Berlin 2005
• Rebellion und Wahn, Köln 2008

Works in English

• The Wall Jumper, New York 1984
• The German Comedy, New York 1990
• Couplings, New York 1996
• Eduard's Homecoming, New York 2000

Secondary Literature

• Alois Prinz: Der poetische Mensch im Schatten der Utopie, Würzburg 1990
• Colin Riordan (ed.): Peter Schneider, Cardiff 1995
• Markus Meik: Peter Schneiders Erzählung "Lenz", Siegen 1997
• Elizabeth Snyder Hook: Family secrets and the contemporary German novel, Rochester, NY [u. a.] 2001
• Gundula M. Sharman: Twentieth century reworkings of German literature, Rochester, NY [u. a.] 2002

External links

• Internetpräsenz von Peter Schneider
• Biography
• Review of The Wall Jumper by Ian McEwan
  Ian McEwan
  Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....