Peter von Matt (born 20 May 1937) is a Swiss philologist and author.
Born in Lucerne, Peter von Matt grew up in Stans in the canton of Nidwalden. He studied art history as well as German and English studies in Zurich and received a doctorate with Emil Staiger on Franz Grillparzer. In 1970, he received his post doctorate lecturing qualifications with a work on E. T. A. Hoffmann.
From 1976 to 2002, von Matt taught at the University of Zurich as a Professor of Newer German Literature. He was a guest professor at Stanford University in 1980 and a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin in 1992/93. Von Matt is a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Sächsische Akademie der Künste (Saxon Academy of the Arts). He writes regular contributions for the Frankfurter Anthologie . He is married to literary critic Beatrice von Matt-Albrecht and lives with her in Dübendorf near Zurich.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Winner of the 2012 Swiss Book Prize.Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism. Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been very popular in German-speaking Europe.
Sibylle Berg is a German-Swiss contemporary author and playwright. They write novels, essays, short fiction, plays, radio plays, and columns. Their 16 books have been translated into 30 languages. They have won numerous awards, including the Thüringer Literaturpreis, the Bertolt-Brecht-Literaturpreis, and the Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis. They have become an iconic figure in German alternative sub-cultures, gaining a large fan base among the LGBT community and the European artistic communities. They live in Switzerland and Israel. Their 2019 work GRM. Brainfuck, a science fiction novel set in a dystopian near future won the Swiss Book Prize and was noticed by The Washington Post, and reached fourth place on the Spiegel Bestseller list, with the sequel, RCE, entering the list as highest entry of the week at place 14. On 1 March 2023 Berg was invited as special guest to open the high-profile Elevate Festival in Graz.
Wilhelm Genazino was a German journalist and author. He worked first as a journalist for the satirical magazine pardon and for Lesezeichen. From the early 1970s, he was a freelance writer who became known by a trilogy of novels, Abschaffel-Trilogie, completed in 1979. It was followed by more novels and two plays. Among his many awards is the prestigious Georg Büchner Prize.
Alfred Schmidt was a German philosopher.
Annette Pehnt is a German writer and literary critic. She lives in Freiburg in Baden-Württemberg.
Swiss Standard German, or Swiss High German, referred to by the Swiss as Schriftdeutsch, or German: Hochdeutsch, is the written form of one of four official languages in Switzerland, besides French, Italian, and Romansh. It is a variety of Standard German, used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and in Liechtenstein. It is mainly written, and rather less often spoken.
Günter Kunert was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. After he had signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Biermann in 1976, he lost his SED membership, and moved to the West two years later. He is regarded as a versatile German writer who wrote short stories, essays, autobiographical works, film scripts and novels. He received international honorary doctorates and awards.
Peter Härtling was a German writer, poet, publisher and journalist. He received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his major contribution to German literature.
Imanuel Geiss was a German historian.
Rüdiger Safranski is a German philosopher and author.
Raoul Schrott is an Austrian poet, writer, literary critic, translator and broadcast personality.
Eike Christian Hirsch was a German journalist, author and television presenter. He was host of a talk show and author of a biography about Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The main themes in his books were religion, humour and German language.
Reinhard Jirgl is a German writer.
Heinz Ludwig Arnold was a German literary journalist and publisher. He was also a leading advocate for contemporary literature.
Richard von Schirach was a German sinologist and author.
Jan Wagner, is a German poet, essayist and translator, recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize and Leipzig Book Fair Prize.
Curt Gerhard Westphal, stage name Gert Westphal, was a German-Swiss actor, audiobook narrator, recitator and director, one of the best-known audiobook narrators and speakers in German, described as "König der Vorleser" and "der Caruso der Vorleser". After his reading of her husband's works, Katia Mann called him "des Dichters oberster Mund". The literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki said he was probably the best reciter of German.
Peter Hamm was a German poet, author, journalist, editor, and literary critic. He wrote several documentaries, including ones about Ingeborg Bachmann and Peter Handke. He wrote for the German weekly newspapers Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, among others. From 1964 to 2002, Hamm worked as contributing editor for culture for the broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. He was also a jury member of literary prizes, and critic for a regular literary club of the Swiss television company Schweizer Fernsehen.
Norbert Miller is a German scholar of literature and art. He was professor of literary studies at the Technische Universität Berlin from 1973 and retired in 2006.
Ilma Rakusa is a Swiss writer and translator. She translates French, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian into German.