Biography

After gaining his Abitur in 1959, he studied German, history, and philosophy at the universities of Freiburg and Munich. In 1962 he continued his studies at the Free University of Berlin. In the federal election campaign of 1965 he worked together with a number of well-known writers in the Wahlkampfkontor (electoral office) of the SPD.

Schneider frequently held posts as visiting professor or writer in residence at universities in the United States, including Stanford, Harvard and Princeton. Since 2001 he was the Roth Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown University.

Schneider was a member of the German PEN Club. He was a recipient of a Villa Massimo scholarship (1979) and the Förderpreis für Literatur des Kulturkreises of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (1983).

During the 1960s, Schneider experienced a political radicalisation that led him to become one of the spokespersons and organisers of the West Berlin West German student movement. In 1967 he was involved in the preparation of the so-called "Springer-Tribunal". He was a member of a group aiming to found a proletarian political party and rouse the working class. For this reason Schneider worked temporarily as an unskilled worker in one of the Bosch factories.

Peter Schneider was a German writer. His novel Lenz, published in 1973, had become a cult text for the German left, capturing the feelings of those disappointed by the failure of their utopian revolt. Since then, Schneider has written novels, short stories, and film scripts that often deal with the fate of members of his generation.