From 1963 to 1971, he studied Sociology, Literature and Philosophy at Frankfurt am Main (under Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and others), Göttingen and Freie Universität Berlin.
From 1969 to 1978, he worked as a social researcher at Freie Universität Berlin, where he earned a doctorate.
Michael Rutschky wrote essays with an original mixture of narrative passages and sociological interpretation of the everyday, often to comical effect.
He received the 1997 Heinrich Mann Prize; in 1999 he held was the visiting poetics lecturer at the University of Heidelberg.
He was married to the educationalist and publisher Katharina Rutschky until her death in January 2010.