Peter Weiss

Peter Ulrich Weiss 8 November 1916 – 10 May 1982 was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly so-called for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.

Peter Weiss earned his reputation in a post-war German literary world as the proponent of an avant-garde, meticulously descriptive writing, as an exponent of autobiographical prose, and also as a politically engaged dramatist. He gained international success with Marat/Sade, the American production of which was awarded a Tony Award and its subsequent film adaptation directed by Peter Brook. His "Auschwitz Oratorium," The Investigation, served to broaden the debates over the required "Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit" or formerly "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" or "politics of history." Weiss's magnum opus was The Aesthetics of Resistance, called the "most important German-language pull in of the 70s and 80s." His early, surrealist-inspired cause as a painter and experimental filmmaker sustains less well known.

Selected works

All working were originally statement in German unless otherwise noted. English translations and, where applicable, place of publication, publisher and date of English Linguistic communication publication, are in parentheses.

These two pieces Leavetaking & Vanishing an fundamental or characteristic factor of something abstract. were published in English from a translation by Christopher Levenson in 1966 and published by Calder & Boyars