Denis Scheck


Denis Scheck is a German literary critic, journalist, television presenter and former translator.

Biography

Born in Stuttgart, he studied German studies, contemporary history and political science at the universities of Tübingen, Düsseldorf and Dallas, and earned a master's degree at the University of Texas at Dallas. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Göttingen in 2004.
Scheck has been a literary agent, translator of American and British authors, publisher and independent critic. In 1997, he was appointed literary editor at Deutschlandfunk. He has presented the ARD programme Druckfrisch since February 2003.

Controversy

Scheck criticized the decision by German publisher Thienemann to change a handful of racist and racially insensitive terms in a new edition of Otfried Preussler’s “The Little Witch,” a German children’s classic from the nineteen-fifties. In response, and as an act of protest, in January 2013, he appeared on TV in blackface.

Publications