Roman Brandstaetter graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków with a degree in philosophy and Polish and taught in a Jewish high school in Warsaw.

In 1933–1935, Brandstaetter was the director of the literary section of a Zionist Polish-language publication called "Opinia", in which he published his programmatic article "Sprawa poezji polsko-żydowskiej" ("The Problem of Polish-Jewish Poetry") (1933).

[2] Brandstaetter published the following volumes of poetry: Droga pod górę ("Uphill Road") (1931), Węzły i miecze ("Knots and Swords") (1932), Królestwo trzeciej świątyni ("Kingdom of the Third Temple") (1933) and Jerozolima światła i mroku ("Jerusalem of Light and Darkness") (1935).

He also draws on the tradition of Chasidic parables, apparent in his work Inne kwiatki świętego Franciszka z Asyżu ("Other Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi") (1976).

Cross-fertilization between Judaism and Christianity is central to Brandstaetter’s postwar works, including his best-known novel, Jezus z Nazarethu—an epic about Christ written in biblical style, exegetic in approach.

The figure of Christ, shown against the background of first-century Palestine, is presented in historical context, while the Gospels are interpreted as continuing the tradition of the Old Testament.

Critics have praised Brandstaetter’s lyric poetry for its function of “hermeneutics of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” as Wojciech Gutowski has termed it, while autobiographical works portray the writer as a bicultural artist, scion of a family rooted in Haskalah.

His grandfather, the writer Mordekhai Brandstetter (1844–1928), often appears in Roman Brandstaetter’s work offering insights into values underlying Jewish life.