S I E G B E R T   P R A W E R
Biography

   Siegbert Prawer was born on 15th February 1925 in Cologne, the son of Marcus Prawer, a lawyer from Poland. His mother, Eleonora Prawer, née Cohn, who loved the theatre and music, was the daughter of the chief cantor of the Glockengasse Synagogue. Siegbert went to the Lützowstraße Jewish Municipal ‘Volksschule’ and then to the Yavneh. In the spring of 1939 he emigrated to England with his parents and his younger sister Ruth (born in 1927). Since he was a Polish national, he was regarded as a ‘friendly alien’ during wartime in Great Britain.

   After he left school, Siegbert Prawer studied German and Comparative Literature at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1948 he got his first job as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham. He taught as visiting professor at various universities in the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and in 1964 he became Professor for German Language and Literature in London. From 1969 until his retirement, he taught at Oxford. He was Honorary Fellow at Queen’s College, Oxford. A long list of publications reflects his many interests. He wrote, for instance, about Heine, Thackeray and Nosferatu, as well as about Karl Marx and world literature. Siegbert Prawer died in Oxford on the 5th May 2012. His sister Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013) was a well-known author and screenwriter.
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