He lived, following its creation during and after 1945, in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Brězan was born in Räckelwitz in Upper Lusatia, the son of a quarry worker and smallholder.

[2][3] He had three younger sisters whose insatiable appetite for new stories encouraged him to exercise his narrative talents from an early age.

[2] After 1933, he worked illegally for Domowina and was active in a Sorbian resistance group.

He was frequently honored in Communist East Germany, receiving the National Prize of East Germany in 1951, 1964 and 1976; the literature and art prize of the Domowina in 1973, the Order of Karl Marx in 1974, and the Vaterländischer Verdienstorden in 1981.