Roger Willemsen was born in Bonn. He studied German Philology, Art History and Philosophy in Bonn, Florence, Munich and Vienna while working as night watchman, tour guide and museum guard on the side. In 1984 he earned his doctorate with a dissertation on Robert Musil’s theory of literature, after which he taught literature as assistant professor at the University of Munich for two and a half years. He abandoned his post-doctoral research on “suicide in literature” in favour of working as a free author.

In the years that followed, Willemsen worked as essayist, publisher and translator of authors such as Thomas Moore and Umberto Eco. After staying in South-East Asia for half a year to research a novel, he went to London in 1988, where he worked as reporter for various radio stations, magazines and newspapers for three years.

After his return in 1991, Willemsen drew the attention of the Hamburg Pay-TV channel Premiere at a casting for the daily interview magazine “0137” – launching his career in television. A good 1000 interviews later he was hosting “Willemsen - Das Fernsehgespräch” (Premiere) in 1993. At about the same time he presented television portraits of personalities such as King Hussein of Jordan, Dame Edna Everage, Carlos Menem and Lech Walesa. From 1994 to 1998 Willemsen hosted the weekly talk show “Willemsens Woche”. Since 1999, Roger Willemsen has been hosting renowned cultural events on German television such as the Echo Classic Gala event on ZDF (together with Senta Berger), “Und der Haifisch der hat Zähne. Hundert Jahre Bertolt Brecht” (Mack the Knife. One hundred years Bertold Brecht) live from the Frankfurt State Opera, the “Romy Schneider-Nacht” or the “Casanova-Nacht” on WDR. Furthermore, he presented portraits of musical artists like Wynton Marsalis, Pierre Boulez, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Sting, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Papa Wemba, Kurt Masur, Gidon Kremer, Woody Allen, Prince and Isaac Stern for the ZDF show “Willemsens Musikszene”.

From January 1999 to November 2000 Roger Willemsen hosted the monthly cultural programme “Nachtkultur mit Willemsen” (WDR), in which he discussed a topical subject from the arts and culture with three to four guests.

Since 1993, Roger Willemsen has been producing and co-producing  documentaries, interviews, theme nights and gala events with his own TV production company NOA-NOA Fernsehproduktion GmbH. From 1999 to 2001, his production company was in charge of the planning, programme and hosting of the Grimme Award Ceremonies. Roger Willemsen had already been  hosting the event since 1998.

Furthermore, NOA-NOA produced a three-hour show commemorating the 10th anniversary of Herbert von Karajan’s death, broadcast live on ZDF from the Berlin Philharmonic.

In the ZDF series “Gipfeltreffen” (summit meeting), Willemsen produced dual TV portraits of personalities like Marie Bäumer and Monty Roberts in Los Angeles or Herbert Grönemeyer and Paul Spiegel in Cologne.

For the German Pavilion at Expo 2000, Roger Willemsen put together a 10-hour video installation from interviews with 55 artists entitled “Welcome Home. Künstler sehen Deutschland” (Artists see Germany), which provided a multi-faceted, detailed and critical view of Germany. In February 2001, Henschel Verlag published a selection of these interviews in a book. The series of interviews was conceived as a global project to be continued.

From the start of the new season in 2000 to the spring of 2002, Roger Willemsen hosted “Das Bühnengespräch”  (Stage Talk) in the Deutsche Schauspielhaus, where he invited prominent representatives of cultural life on stage (among others Ivan Nagel, Nike Wagner, Robert Gernhardt, Ingo Metzmacher, Carl Djerassi, Meret Becker) and engaged them in in-depth discussions.

Willemsen cancelled all his TV contracts in 2002 and announced he would get out of the medium “until further notice”. He gave an account of his months-long travels crisscrossing Germany for a complete issue of “SZ Magazin”. It was published by Eichborn in January 2002 as a double CD set read by himself, and later as a book. It was on the “Spiegel” bestseller list for five months.

The spectrum of the more than 2000 guests interviewed by Roger Willemsen ranges from Yassir Arafat, Madonna, Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Sting, King Hussein of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Carlos Menem to Jacqueline Bisset, Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Rampling, Emanuelle Beart and Yoko Ono.

In addition to his jobs as TV host, Willemsen works as publisher, author and essayist. In 1991/92 he wrote a regular column for “Zeit-Magazin”. From 1993 until its end in the spring of 2002 he wrote a weekly column for the weekly magazine “Die Woche”.

He publishes his critical comments on culture in newspapers and magazines such as “Die Zeit”, “Zeit-Magazin”, “Der Spiegel”, “Transatlantik”, “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, “Du”, “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, “Das Magazin” in Switzerland and in many other publications.

In 1995/96 he accepted a guest professorship at the faculty of literature of the Ruhr University Bochum. He also repeatedly taught at the University of Film and Television in Munich and at the Journalism Academy in Hamburg.

Roger Willemsen made his debut as film director with the documentary “Non Stop - Eine Reise mit Michel Petrucciani”, which was first broadcast by Arte in April 1996, then by ZDF and in the meantime has been broadcast in 13 countries. This was followed by the ZDF/ARTE co-productions “Timothy Leary - Der letzte Trip”, “Gerhard Schröder - Vom Kandidaten zum Kanzler” and “Bordelle der Welt” and by “Der Literaturpapst - Film zum 80. Geburtstag von Marcel Reich-Ranicki” (together with Reinhold Jaretzky) for ZDF as well as “Welcome Home. Künstler über Deutschland” for Deutsche Welle.

In addition to a few film projects under his supervision, Willemsen has above all been pursuing his literary work since 2002. In the meantime his books have been translated into French, English, Greek, Farsi, Dutch and Korean while his book and press tours have led him to Greece, Cyprus, England, South Africa and Poland. There are stage versions both of his “Deutschlandreise” (German Travels) and of his Guantánamo book, which have been performed on various occasions.

For years he has brought his rhymed version of “Carnival of the Animals” to the stage with orchestras or the two pianists Anna and Ines Walachowski. Since the fall of 2005 he has also been touring the musical “Ein Schuss, ein Schrei. Das Meiste von Karl May” with the two sisters. This Karl May Revue, called “The Ultimate Maysical”, combines summaries of Karl May’s novels put in humorous rhymes with harmonious musical interludes for two pianos or four hands.

Since the fall of 2005 Willemsen has also been on tour with his humorous story-telling programme “Und Du so?” throughout Germany and Switzerland. Together with Dieter Hildebrandt, he has been performing in the programme “Ich gebe Ihnen mein Ehrenwort. Die Weltgeschichte der Lüge” on the big stages in Germany, Switzerland and Austria since March 2007.

On occasion he also hosted major events like theme concerts with the Munich Radio Orchestra, the LitCologne Gala or the Literary Summer Night with Martin Stankowski. To all intents and purposes, though, he will only host an event for humanitarian reasons, as he did for the Amnesty International Human Rights Award or for the Afghan Women’s Association. He makes exceptions for theme nights, usually on big stages,  for example on the nature and function of literature, on encounters with people and places, on love, on aphorism etc.

He has also reduced his work in radio, which used to range from the dialogue radio programme “Die guten Deutschen” (Radio Bremen) to the Jazz programme “Gefühlsausbrüche” (WDR 5), though on occasion he still works on the two-hour monothematic literature and music programmes of WDR 5 entitled “SpielArt” (formerly “Ohrenweide”) and on “Willemsen legt auf” for NDR Kultur, a programme broadcast from the Rolf Liebermann Hall and taped in front of a live audience. A programme of the same name also exists as a weekly studio production for NDR Kultur.
Roger Willemsen has realized numerous stage and TV productions with musicians, among these Giuseppe Sinopoli, Anna and Ines Walachowski, Daniel Hope, Frank Chastenier, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Resonance ensemble, the Disinvolto ensemble, the WDR Big Band and others.

From February 2004 to July 2006 he hosted the “Literaturclub” on Swiss television (SFDRS), which was also broadcast on 3Sat.

Roger Willemsen is patron of the Mannheim Literature Festival “Lesen: Hören”, friend and sponsor of LitCologne, columnist for LitColony and “Zeit Magazin”, where he will appear in the spring with his series of essays “Willemsens Jahreszeiten”. Roger Willemsen is patron of the Afghan Women’s Association and devotes a lot of his efforts to the building of wells and schools as well as to medical care, especially in the rural northern regions of the country. He has travelled to Afghanistan on several occasions, is constantly in touch with the local co-workers and organizes several charity and information events a year for Afghanistan in Germany. Furthermore, Willemsen is an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, is a member of CARE International’s Board of Trustees and supports Terres des Femmes.

Since the start of the summer semester 2010 Roger Willemsen has been teaching as visiting professor at the Humboldt University Berlin.

Willemsen has received several awards, among these the Grimme Award in Gold and the Bavarian Television Award, the ENIT award for the best book on Italy in 2000, the PEN International recommendation for the English edition of “Afghanische Reise” as well as the 2009 Rinke Award for “Der Knacks”. He also received the 2010 ITB Book Award for “Die wundersamen Irrfahrten des William Lithgow” and (together with Michael Lohse and Günter Frorath) the Felix Rexhausen Award for the SpielArt release “Er sucht ihn”.