Peter Demetz

Peter Demetz (born Petr Demetz; October 21, 1922 – April 30, 2024) was an American scholar of German literature. He was born in Prague, where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949. He worked in Germany as a teacher and radio journalist. He emigrated to the United States in 1952, studied further, and began teaching at Yale University in 1956; he was later appointed a Sterling Professor there and Distinguished Visiting professor at Rutgers University. From the 1970s, he also worked as a literary critic for German papers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He is known for his 1997 book, Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City.

Life and career Petr Demetz Demetz turned 100 in October 2022 ("a history of my hometown from the sixth to the early twentieth century", writes the author in Prague in Danger, p. vii)

Böhmen böhmisch: Essays. Mit einem Vorw. von Karl Schwarzenberg. Vienna: Zsolnay, 2006. ISBN 978-3-552-05373-1.

Awards 1971: Goethe Medal