Background
Karasek was born in the capital city of Moravia, Brno (German: Brünn), which was then a part of Czechoslovakia (nowadays of the Czechoslovakian Republic).
journalist literary critic playwright university professor writer
Karasek was born in the capital city of Moravia, Brno (German: Brünn), which was then a part of Czechoslovakia (nowadays of the Czechoslovakian Republic).
After finishing his schooling in the early 1950s he moved from there—then part of East Germany—to West Germany and became a student at the University of Tübingen, where he studied History, German and English language and literature.
He was one of Germany"s best-known feuilletonists. In 1944, when he was ten, his family fled from Bielitz in the neighbouring German region of Silesia (today Bielsko in Poland) to Bernburg in Saxony-Anhalt. After his graduation Karasek started working as a journalist, and in 1968 became the theatre critic of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit ("The Time").
From 1974 until 1996 he wrote for the popular news magazine Der Spiegel, where he worked as the chief editor of the feuilleton.
After his retirement from The Spiegel he wrote a novel named Das Magazin in which he critisiced Der Spiegel. He also worked in later years for newspapers like Die Welt, Bild, Berliner Morgenpost and Der Tagesspiegel.
He also frequently appeared on other German television shows, for example in quiz shows like Die 5-Millionen-Suomen Kristillinen Liitto (Finnish Christian Union)-Show. Karasek also wrote some stage plays under the psyeudonym Daniel Doppler.
Karasek attended the National Political Institutes of Education in Loben. Karasek was best-known as one of the permanent members of the television-literature review show Das Literarische Quartett, together with literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, between 1988 and 2001.
In 1999, he was a member of the jury at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival.