Peter Schwendele was born in West Germany in 1965, in Ehingen on the Danube in the state of Baden-Württemberg. After high school, he completed his alternative civilian service and went on a lengthy stay abroad in India. After his return, he attended university in Freiburg im Breisgau, where he studied Political Science, History, and Sociology.
He is currently living in Schopfheim and working there as a journalist for the daily Markgräfler Tagblatt. He is also a prolific author of short stories and other prose texts, many of which have been published in literary journals in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, such as Driesch, DUM, Entwürfe, Erostepost, Lichtungen, and Podium. Some of his work was also published in anthologies, as for example Rosa ist das Grau der Optimisten (Pink is the Grey of Optimists) for the 2011 Würth Literary Prize and Europa, wo hast du deinen Stier gelassen? (Europe, where have you left your Bull?) for the 2013 Putlitzer Prize.
In April 2018, Peter Schwendele’s first novel, the crime novel Verkaufte Erleuchtung (Enlightenment sold), was published by Silberburg (Tübingen). The subject of the book is a crime story set against the background of the Sannyasa movement, which was led by the guru Osho, formerly known as Bhagwan, who was a well-known and charismatic figure in the 1980s in Germany and in the United States. (2018)