Peter Weiss (1) (1916–1982)
Author of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade
For other authors named Peter Weiss, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
In December 1965 Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1964), in a presentation by Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, stormed the Broadway stage, captivating audience and critic alike. The assumption that the play about the murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday might have been one of the many dramatic pieces show more written by Sade---and enacted by his fellow inmates for "therapeutic" reasons during the Marquis's confinement at Charenton---provided Weiss (who maintained that "every word I put down is political") with his framework for the "confrontation of the revolutionary Marat as the apostle of social improvement and the cynical individualist, the Marquis de Sade" (N.Y. Times). The Investigation (1965), which Weiss considered his best play, was first presented in 20 theaters in East and West Germany; Ingmar Bergman (see Vol. 3) was its Swedish director. It was staged in New York in 1966. Taken almost entirely from the actual proceedings of the 1965 Frankfurt War Crimes Tribunal on Auschwitz, The Investigation is a "harrowing but insistently commanding experience" (Walter Kerr, N.Y. Times). The audience, in effect, reenacts the role of the original courtroom spectators in this shattering, true account of man's depravity. Weiss received the Buchner Prize in 1982. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photograph by Dietbert Keßler (1982)
Series
Works by Peter Weiss
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the… (1964) — Author — 1,255 copies, 13 reviews
Marat/Sade, The Investigation, The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman: Peter Weiss (German Library) (1998) 43 copies, 1 review
Diskurs över det långvariga befrielsekriget i Vietnam dess förhistoria och förlopp som exempel på nödvändigheten… (1971) 20 copies
Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek : Peter Weiss : Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats (2004) — Text — 14 copies
Diagnos 5 copies
Tre atti unici 3 copies
Nacht mit Gästen 3 copies
Notizbücher 3 copies
The Investigation -- a New Play 2 copies
Prosa und Marat 2 copies
Der Maler Peter Weiss Bilder, Zeichnungen, Collagen, Filme ; [Museum Bochum, Kunstsammlung] (1984) 2 copies
La persecuzione e l'assassinio di Jean - Paul Marat, rappresentati dai filodrammatici di Charenton, sotto la guida… (1967) 1 copy
Fluchtpunkt : Roman 1 copy
Nacht mit Gästen zwei Stücke 1 copy
Song Of The Lusitanian Bogey 1 copy
Weiss Peter 1 copy
Viet Nam 1 copy
Persecución y asesinato de Jean Paul Marat, representados por el grupo de actores del Hospicio de Charenton bajo… (2009) 1 copy
Gesang vom Lusitanischen Popanz: Mit Materialien (Edition Suhrkamp ; 700) (German Edition) (1974) 1 copy, 1 review
Från ö till ö 1 copy
Der Prozess 1 copy
Associated Works
Two, three ... many Vietnams;: A radical reader on the wars in Southeast Asia and the conflicts at home (1971) — Contributor — 15 copies
Napalm — Author — 6 copies
Spectaculum IX. Sieben moderne Theaterstücke. Beckett - Duras - Mrozek - Shaw - Sperr - Steinheim - Weiss (1966) — Author — 5 copies
Als de dagen van het jaar verhalen uit de Westduitse werkelijkheid 1970-heden (1985) — Author — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Weiss, Peter
- Legal name
- Weiss, Peter Ulrich
- Other names
- Sinclair (pseudonym)
- Birthdate
- 1916-11-08
- Date of death
- 1982-05-10
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Czechoslovakia
Sweden (naturalized 1946) - Birthplace
- Nowawes, Germany
- Place of death
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Cause of death
- heart attack
- Places of residence
- Chislehurst, Kent, England, UK
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Stockholm, Sweden - Education
- Prague Art Academy
Polytechnic School of Photography - Occupations
- playwright
painter
graphic artist
filmmaker
novelist - Relationships
- Jungk, Robert (friend)
- Awards and honors
- Georg Büchner Preis (1982)
Swedish Theatre Critics Prize (1982)
De Nios Prize (1982)
Bremen Literature Prize (1982)
Cologne Literature Prize (1981)
Thomas Dehler Prize (1978) (show all 11)
Carl Albert Anderson Prize (1967)
Tony Award for Best Play (Marat/Sade, 1966)
Heinrich Mann Prize (1966)
Lessing Prize (1965)
Charles Veillon Award (1963) - Short biography
- 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.
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 93
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 2,772
- Popularity
- #9,261
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 26
- ISBNs
- 219
- Languages
- 16
- Favorited
- 4