Writer, Berlin, Germany
Janvier – Mars 2015
Peter SCHNEIDER was born in 1940, the third of six children, in Luebeck (Germany). His father Horst Schneider was composer and conductor. He grew up in Germany where he studied history and philosophy at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich, and Berlin (1959-1964). He was active in the student movements in 1966-1972, in Berlin and Trento (Italy). He lived in Italy since 1972 and since 1985, he has been a Writer-in-Residence and Visiting Professor at various American universities, including: Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard, Washington University (St. Louis), and Georgetown University. In 1996-1997 he was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. and from 2000 to 2006 the Roth Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
He authored over 20 books, including novels, short stories and essays, some of them translated into 20 different languages.
The three trillion dollar opera
Peter SCHNEIDER plans working on a play called The three trillion dollar opera. The whole play is located in a Golf club. It is in this environment where the seven protagonists work out their deals, create their financial products and exchange their private problems and their worldviews. The initiator of an especially poisonous product is a ruthless and genius broker by the name Meph – the figure hints at Mephistopheles in the play Faust of J.W. Goethe. Meph who is ageless translates the language of the financial markets into rhymes and speaks only in verses. He talks Victor, his ambitious and talented student, into ruining a single father of two kids by investing in ever more worthless products. The father runs amok.
Peter SCHNEIDER also wants to start a novel which is located in the financial world but focuses on the art market. Here the hero will be an adventurous forger and creative liar who causes a crash in the art market.
Books published in English (among others):
SCHNEIDER, Peter. The Wall Jumper, New York, 1984
SCHNEIDER, Peter. German Comedy: Scenes of Life after the Wall, New York, 1992
SCHNEIDER, Peter. The German Comedy, New York, 1990
SCHNEIDER, Peter. Couplings, New York, 1996
SCHNEIDER, Peter. Eduard's Homecoming, New York, 2000