20 Facts About Peter Demetz

Peter Demetz was born in Prague, where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949.

Peter Demetz worked in Germany as a teacher and radio journalist.

Peter Demetz 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.

Peter Demetz is known for his 1997 book, Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City.

Petr Demetz was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on October 21,1922.

Peter Demetz's mother was a Jewish seamstress, and his father a Catholic German.

Peter Demetz grew up in Brno, where he experienced a working democracy.

Peter Demetz was arrested by the Gestapo and forced to do hard labor.

Peter Demetz studied philosophy, comparative religious sciences, German studies and English at the Charles University in Prague, with Hugo Siebenschein, Jan Patocka and Ladislav Rieger; he achieved a doctorate in German studies in 1948.

Peter Demetz's dissertation dealt with the influence of Franz Kafka on literature in English from 1947.

Peter Demetz was a teacher in a camp for children in Bad Aibling run by the International Refugee Organization, where his students were orphans who had been persecuted for racial and political reasons.

The Demetz family moved to the United States in 1952, where Peter achieved a master's degree in German studies at Columbia University and another doctorate in comparative literary history, at Yale University, with a dissertation about the Prague years of Franz Kafka and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Peter Demetz was on the faculty of Yale from 1956 until 1991 when he retired, from 1962 as professor of German literature and comparative literary history, serving as head of the department from 1963 to 1969, and from 1972 as Sterling Professor.

Peter Demetz lectured as a guest at universities including Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and the University of St Gallen.

Peter Demetz was vice-chair and later chairman of the Modern Language Association, and he served on the jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for ten years.

From 1974, Peter Demetz wrote as a literary critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, invited by Marcel Reich-Ranicki, and for Die Zeit.

Peter Demetz's books were published in German, Czech, and English.

Peter Demetz wrote autobiographic books, including a collection of essays, Bohmische Sonne, mahrischer Mond in 1996, and Mein Prag in 2007, narrating his experiences under the Nazi occupation.

Peter Demetz was the Craig Distinguished Visiting professor at Rutgers University from 2007 to 2008.

Peter Demetz turned 100 in October 2022 and died on April 30,2024, at age 101.