Patrick Süskind

Patrick Süskind is a German writer and screenwriter.

He was born in Ambach on Lake Starnberg. He lives discreetly, alternating between Munich and France, preferably in Montsardane. Because of his reclusive lifestyle and his persistence in declining interview requests and official statements about his works, the press has called him “the phantom of German popular literature.”

The second son of the publicist Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind, he grew up in the Bavarian village of Holzhausen, where he first attended the village school and later the gymnasium. After finishing school and completing alternative service in the army, Süskind began studying history in Munich and earning money at any jobs he could find. For one year Süskind attended lectures in Aix-en-Provonce and improved his knowledge of the French language and French culture. After that, he earned money by writing screenplays.

Süskind’s first success on the theater stage came with The Double Bass. Five years later, with Perfume (1985), Süskind achieved worldwide success. For this work, Süskind traveled to the places where the novel is set, delved into the secrets of perfumery at the Fragonard company, and above all studied a large number of literary and cultural sources, which he later used abundantly in the novel. Perfume was first published by Diogenes.

This was followed by the novellas The Pigeon (1987) and A Man Named Summer (1991). Süskind became equally successful as a playwright, prose writer, and screenwriter. His (anti-)heroes share one common trait: the difficulty of finding their place in the world and in contact with other people. They are “special” and prefer to hide from the dangerous world in small rooms. Süskind was predisposed to literature. His father was acquainted with the Mann family. He wrote literary texts and worked for various newspapers, the last of which was the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Süskind’s father led a respectable life and was known for his hospitality and his “tea evenings,” at which the young Süskind was expected to demonstrate his skill at the piano.

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