Peter Weiss


"Alles Sichtbare ist nur Symbol für eines jeden Traum."

- Der Fremde (1949)


Peter Weiss

P e t e r W e i s s

1916-1982




I n d e x

  • This is the Main Page, on which you can find introductory information:

    More detailed information can be found on separate pages:

  • The Drama page
  • The Fiction page
  • The Die Ästhetik des Widerstands page
  • The Calendar, on which we try to inform you of events having to do with Weiss, and when and where performances of his works can be seen.
  • The Links page, providing links to many Peter Weiss-related sites and pages
  • We now also have preliminary results from our current poll.

    We also encourage you to participate on our:

  • Peter Weiss-Message Board


    • About this site

    Peter Weiss is known internationally primarily as a dramatist: his most famous work is the modern classic, Marat/Sade. However, Weiss wrote numerous other significant plays, several collections of essays (and notebooks), and a variety of novels, ranging from the experimental to the autobiographical and culminating in the epic Die Ästhetik des Widerstands, perhaps the single most significant German novel of the past 25 years. Weiss was also a gifted painter and filmmaker. With the forthcoming publication of a translation of the first of the three volumes of The Aesthetics of Resistance this work will hopefully finally reach an English and American audience.

    While there are Websites devoted Weiss it seems an opportune time to create an English-language one that makes information about the author accessible to a wider audience.


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    N e w s


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    B i o g r a p h y


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    Finding Weiss


    If you speak German a whole Weiss world is open to you. Practically all of his writing is available from Suhrkamp Verlag, much of it the attractive and relatively reasonably priced st or es paperbacks.

    If you do not speak German life is more difficult. The lists below indicate which Weiss titles have been translated. Unfortunately many of these translations are twenty or thirty years old and no longer readily available. To gauge from what is available at the local bookstore, Weiss' popularity is not what it was (or should be !) and interested readers are hard pressed to find the works they are looking for. (A recent trip to a New York Barnes & Nobles superstore found no Weiss titles in stock, not even Marat/Sade.) Libraries and used bookstores are your best bet: Weiss is renowned enough to be firmly ensconced on library shelves -- and enough of his books were in circulation for a fair number of them to find their way to used bookstores.

    For Weiss titles (and books about him) that are in print trusty old Amazon.com is not the worst place to look.

    We hope that this site will eventually provide most of your internet Weiss needs, but we also provide links to all significant Weiss-related sites.


    New Publications

    An English translation of Der neue Prozeß has now been published. (Available as The New Trial from Amazon.com -- and at Amazon.co.uk). See a review of the translation at the Complete Review.

    Suhrkamp has brought out a German translation of Weiss' unpublished 1956 novel Situationen. Written in Swedish, it has now been translated by Wiebke Ankersen, and is available, as Die Situation, from Amazon.de. See a review at the Complete Review

    Another recent English publication is that of the collection Marat/Sade, The Investigation, and the Shadow of the Coachman’s Body (Edited by Robert Cohen), Volume 92 of the excellent New German Library series brought out by the Continuum.
    Amazon offers a decent deal on this title, both in hardcover and paperback.

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    D r a m a s

    English titles are given in parentheses for those works which have been translated.
    Works which are in print are marked with an asterisk (*)

    Marat/Sade cover


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    F i c t i o n

    English titles are given in parenthese for those works which have been translated.
    Works which are in print are marked with an asterisk (*)

    Die Ästhetik des Widerstands


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    O t h e r

    English titles are given in parentheses for those works which have been translated.
    Works which are in print are marked with an asterisk (*)


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    F i l m


    Note: Regretably it is unlikely that any of these films are available at your local Blockbuster. We will try to post any film festival etc. screenings when they come to our attention.


    Films of Works by Peter Weiss:



    Films about Peter Weiss:



    Films by Peter Weiss:


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    F e e d b a c k

    We appreciate your answering the following questions so that we can learn more about the demographics of users of this page. Thank you !


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    P o l l

    Our current poll asks:


    Who do you think is the best post-WWII German-language author ?

    Thomas Bernhard
    Heinrich Böll
    Günter Grass
    Heiner Müller
    Arno Schmidt
    Peter Weiss
    Christa Wolf
    Other


    Preliminary results of this poll can be found here.


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    You are encouraged to send an e-mail if you have any suggestions or comments.



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    Last updated: May 26, 2001