What we want to read again

Peter Demetz elevates criticism to an art form in his essays. In the early 1970s, the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung increasingly opened up to left-liberal German and American authors, including Egon Schwarz, Walter Hinck, Peter Rühmkorf, and Peter Demetz. Among them, Demetz occupies a unique position, not only as an outstanding stylist but also with his unparalleled comparative expertise: Lessing, Fontane, Rilke, repeatedly Kafka, the European avant-garde, international contemporary literature, Prague, and cinema have all been subjects of his books and essays. In October 2022, Peter Demetz celebrated his 100th birthday. His elevation of criticism to an art form is evident in this selection of literary essays he has written over five decades for Die Zeit and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In these works, he presents himself as urban, cosmopolitan, and provocative, but above all, profoundly human.