Life
Born in Berlin, Plenzdorf studied Philosophy in Leipzig, but graduated with a degree in film. He found work at DEFA.
He became famous in both East and West Germany for his socially critical work titled "Die neuen Leiden des jungen W." Written in the jargon of the GDR-youth of the 1970s, it details the tragic story of a young man and his attempt to break free from his stifling bourgeois environment, drawing parallels between his own life and that of the protagonist in Goethe's work The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther) (1774).
Since 2004, Plenzdorf had been a guest lecturer at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut in Leipzig.
He died near Berlin of undisclosed causes, aged 72.
Read more about this topic: Ulrich Plenzdorf
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Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
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“People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)