Loest was born on 24 February 1926 in Mittweida, Saxony. In his later years, Loest became seriously ill and announced at an Academy of Arts ceremony in 2010 that he did not have the strength to write another novel. On the morning of 12 September 2013, he committed suicide by falling from a second-floor hospital window in Leipzig, Saxony. He was 87 years old.