Richard Wagner (10 April 1952 – 14 March 2023) was a Romanian-born German novelist. He published a number of short stories, novels and essays.

Life and work

Wagner was a member of one of Romania's German minorities, called Banat Swabians, like his wife, Herta Müller He studied German and Romanian literature at Timișoara University. He then worked as a German language school teacher and as a journalist, and published poetry and short stories in German. He was in 1972 a co-founder and member of the Aktionsgruppe Banat, a German-speaking literary activist society. In 1987, Wagner and Müller left Romania for West Berlin, to escape communist oppression and censorship in Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania. They separated in 1989. Wagner had Parkinson's disease for many years. He died in a Berlin nursing home on 14 March 2023, at age 70.

Publications

Honours