Günter Kunert

Who is Günter Kunert?

Günter Kunert is a German writer who left the German Democratic Republic to live in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Kunert was born in Berlin. After attending a Volksschule, it was not possible for Kunert—due to the National Socialist race laws—to continue his high school education. After World War II ended, Kunert studied in East Berlin's Academy of Applied Arts from 1946–49, but abandoned his studies.

He joined the main political party of East Germany, the Socialist Unity Party in 1948. In 1976 he signed a petition against the deprivation of citizenship of fellow writer Wolf Biermann and subsequently lost his SED membership. Kunert was able to leave the GDR in 1979 with a visa. He, his wife Marianne, and their granddaughter Judith established themselves near Itzehoe in northern Germany, where he still lives today.

Kunert is considered to be one of the most versatile and most important contemporary German writers. Beside lyric poetry, he has written short stories, essays, autobiographical works, aphorisms, satires, fairy tales, science fiction, radio plays, speeches, travel writing, film scripts, a novel, and a drama. Kunert is also a painter and a graphic artist. He has published in numerous literary magazines, such as Muschelhaufen.