Gunter Kunert was born in Berkin on march 6, 1929, to a Jewish mother and a Roman Catholic father. He survived the war but lost many relatives on his mother's side to the Holocaust. He quit university to devote himself to writing in 1947, after the publication of his first poem, "A Train Rolls Past". Like many young intellectuals in the early years of East Germany, he was an anti-fascist committed to the ideals of building an egalitarian society; he joined the Communist Party in 1949.
His writing caught the attention of Bertolt Brecht and the author and politician Johannes R. Becher, who became mentors and helped promote his works. In 1962 he won the Heinrich Mann Prize for essay writing, the first of more than a dozen awards he collected throughout his lifetime, which also included honorary doctorates from Allegheny College and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
Gunter Kunert passed away on September 21, 2019 at the age of 90.
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