Peter Demetz earned his first doctorate from Charles University in Prague in 1948. After immigrating to the United States and earning a master's degree at Columbia University, he went on to receive a Ph.D from Yale, where he served on the faculty from 1956 until his retirement 1991.

His most recent book, "Prague in Black and Gold," is a history and personal memoir of the city which was home and inspiration to many towering figures of European civilization such as Kepler, Mozart, Rabbi Judah Loew, Dvorak, Smetana, Rilke and Kafka. Other books by Demetz include "Marx, Engels and the Poets" and "After the Fires: Writing in the Germanies, Austria and Switzerland." Demetz was awarded a Medal of Merit in the fields of scholarship and culture from the Czech Republic in 2000. Previously Demetz has won two other major awards for his outstanding contributions to the study of German culture. In 1971 he received the Golden Goethe Award of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 1984 he was given the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit by the German government.