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The son of a medical practitioner, Roth originally also wanted to study medicine himself, but soon focussed on literature. Initially, he earned his living as a computer programmer; he has been a freelance writer since 1976. From 1973 to 1978, he was member of the Grazer Autorenversammlung before he moved to Hamburg in 1979. Since 1986, he has alternately lived in Vienna and in Styria.

He has won many literature prizes, among which are the literature prize of Styria (1976), the Alfred-Döblin-Prize (1983), and the Bruno-Kreisky-Prize (2002). In 1995, he was awarded the Golden Romy for his screenplay of Schnellschuss.

Roth refers to himself as "someone obsessed with writing in the best sense." In the focus is the hero, struggling in vain, to whom the world appears to be a torturous, intolerable state. Often Roth externally couches his writings in the form of a crime novel, in which he emphasises the unravelling of the hidden, in a figurative sense.

The focus of his main opus, Die Archive des Schweigens, is the re-appraisal of Austrian history in today's political and social systems.

All references are in German.

• P. Ensberg und H. Schreckenberger: G. Roth, 1994;
• M. Baltl (Ed.): G. Roth, 1995;
• U. Schütte: Auf der Spur der Vergessenen. G. Roth und seine Archive des Schweigens, 1997.