The German poet and essayist Reiner Kunze was born in Oelsnitz (Erzegebirge), in the GDR. His father was a miner and his mother a factory worker. Reiner was meant to become a cobbler, but after secondary school he entered a preparatory class for workers' children who were continuing their education at upper-secondary school. In 1951, he began to study philosophy and journalism at the University of Leipzig, but he dropped out in 1959 after a series of political disputes. He then worked in a mechanical factory and spent long periods in Czechoslovakia where he started to publish translations of Czech poetry.