From 1983 to 1985, during his studies in Regensburg, Niemann was instrumentalist and vocalist of the New Wave band Thieves of the night, for whom he also composed and wrote lyrics for the first time.

Together with authors of the same age, such as Marcel Beyer and Durs Grünbein, Niemann became an associate and editor of the Literaturzeitschrift Konzepte, as well as a member of the group "Schöner Wohnen".

His social criticism and his poetics of changing narrative techniques are influenced, among other things, by Adornos / Horkheimer's Dialectics of Enlightenment, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault.

Niemann's analytical approach is classified by the criticism in the succession of Robert Musil, Joseph Roth, Thomas Mann, or Arthur Schnitzler.

From 2006 to 2014, he was deputy chairman of the district of Bavaria of the Association of German Writers (VS), and is a member of the PEN Center in Germany.