Peter Hacks

Peter Hacks (21 March 1928 – 28 August 2003) was a German playwright, author, and essayist.

Displaced by World War II, Hacks settled in Munich in 1947, where he made acquaintance with Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht.

His success on the world stage – most notably with Ein Gespräch im Hause Stein über den abwesenden Herrn von Goethe (English title: Charlotte) – led to his literary acceptance within GDR and West-Germany.

Hacks was a communist and supported the East German government's 1976 expatriation of the singer Wolf Biermann.

Together with his wife Hacks used the pseudonym Saul O’Hara through which they could write and publish boulevard comedies (Risky Marriage).