Photo (detail): © picture-alliance / akg-images
Peter Weiss
(born 8 November 1916 in Nowawes, Germany; died 10 May 1982 in Stockholm); writer, painter, filmmaker
Peter Weiss’s family migrated to London in 1935. Weiss studied at the Polytechnic School of Photography, produced his first paintings, and organised his first exhibition. A year later, the family left for Czechoslovakia, where Weiss studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts and devoted himself to writing. In 1938, the family moved to Sweden, where Weiss worked as a textile designer and taught painting. His novel, Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers (The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman), with his own illustrations, was published in 1960, although it was written back in 1952. His three-volume novel – Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (The Aesthetics of Resistance) – was published between 1971 and 1981 and is considered his major work. Peter Weiss produced several works of prose, novels and plays and made many experimental films. He became known as a representative of avant-garde literature, author of autobiographical prose and a politically engaged playwright. Weiss received multiple awards for his work, including the Heinrich Mann Prize (1966), the Bremen Literature Prize (1982) and the Georg Büchner Prize (1982).