Peter Weiss

Kai Evers (University of California, Irvine)
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Peter Weiss is regarded as one of the few major European authors of his generation. A central figure in the German-Jewish literary tradition, he was among the first and most important writers to address the horrors of the Holocaust. His early autobiographical texts

Abschied von den Eltern

[

Leavetaking

, 1962] and

Fluchtpunkt

[

Vanishing Point

, 1963] are modern German classics. His

opus magnum

, the three-part

Die Ästhetik des Widerstands

[

The Aesthetics of Resistance

, 1975-81], an epic

roman d'essai

about the antifascist resistance movement from the late thirties to 1947, is acknowledged today as a towering achievement in German literature. With the international success of his plays

Marat/Sade

(1964) and

Die Ermittlung

[

The Investigation

, 1965], Weiss became a leading playwright in the…

3158 words

Citation: Evers, Kai. "Peter Weiss". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 October 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5467, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5467 Peter Weiss 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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