Peter von Matt

Peter von Matt (20 May 1937 – 21 April 2025) was a Swiss philologist, specialist in German studies, and author. He was an authority in literary education.

Life and career Born in Lucerne on 20 May 1937, Peter von Matt grew up in Stans in the canton of Nidwalden. In 1970, he received his post doctorate lecturing qualifications with a work on E. T. A. Hoffmann. 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 was a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Academia Europaea, the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Sächsische Akademie der Künste (Saxon Academy of the Arts). He regularly appeared on Marcel Reich-Ranicki's literary talk show Literarisches Quartett on German public television. Reich-Ranicki once called von Matt the "best writer of German-speaking Switzerland". Von Matt was a friend of Max Frisch. and explored the European identity and the Swiss soul. In a legendary appearance at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1991, von Matt protested against prejudices towards Swiss literature: "As soon as a Swiss person reads, it is immediately said that they have a tongue like a forest snail". In his book Liebesverrat : die Treulosen in der Literatur, he guided entertainingly through love dramas in world literature.

He was married to literary critic Beatrice von Matt-Albrecht and lived with her in Dübendorf near Zurich.

Von Matt died in Zurich on 21 April 2025, at the age of 87.

Works

The Wild and the Ordered. About German Literature

Winner of the 2012 Swiss Book Prize.

Thesis

Awards

1991: Johann Heinrich Merck Prize for Literary Critique and Essay 1994: Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis 1998: Prize of the Frankfurter Anthologie 2006: Heinrich Mann Prize 2012: Swiss Book Prize for Das Kalb vor der Gotthardpost 2014: Goethe Prize