Peter Weiss (1) (1916–1982)

Peter Weiss was born in Nowawes, near Berlin, Germany. His parents were Franziska Frieda and Eugen "Jenö" Weiss, a Hungarian Jew who converted to Christianity, and he had four siblings. After World War I and the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his father became a Czech citizen and Peter acquired his father's nationality. He began training as a painter as a teenager. In 1935, after persecution by the Nazi regime, the family moved to the UK. Weiss studied photography at the Polytechnic Regent Street (now the University of Westminster) in London. In 1936, the family moved to Czechoslovakia, where Weiss attended the Prague Art Academy. After Nazi Germany's invasion in 1938, the family moved to Sweden, while Weiss was in Switzerland visiting Hermann Hesse. He rejoined his family the following year in Stockholm, where he lived for the rest of his life. He painted and made experimental films influenced by the Surrealists. Later he became a prolific novelist, playwright, and nonfiction writer, originally in Swedish, but by 1950 in German. He gained international acclaim for his 1963 play Marat/Sade, the Broadway production of which won the 1966 Tony Award for Best Play, and its 1967 film adaptation. In the 1960s, Weiss became increasingly left-wing politically. In 1968, he joined the Swedish Left Communist Party (VPK). He opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war, and visited North Vietnam, later publishing a book about his trip. He wrote three autobiographical novels: Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers (The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman, 1960), Abschied von den Eltern (The Leave-taking, 1961), and Fluchtpunkt (Exile, 1962). His monumental three-part novel The Aesthetics of Resistance appeared in 1975–1981. Weiss received numerous prestigious awards, including the highest German literary award, the Georg Büchner Prize in 1982.