Susanne Schädlich was born in Jena and left the GDR with her family in 1977 (parents: Hans Joachim Schädlich, writer, and Krista Maria Schädlich, editor). In 1987, she moved to Los Angeles, where she studied modern German philology on a scholarship from the University of Southern California, taught German as a foreign language, and worked at the Max Kade Institute for American-German-Swiss Studies. She has been living in Berlin again since 1999.

In 2009, she published the SPIEGEL bestseller Immer wieder Dezember – Der Westen, die Stasi, der Onkel und ich (December Again and Again – The West, the Stasi, My Uncle, and Me). This was followed by several writer-in-residence stays in the USA, including in Oberlin, Ohio, and scholarships such as the Berlin Senate Literature Scholarship (2012), the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Scholarship (2018), the Alfred Döblin Scholarship (2022), and the Prussian Maritime Trade Foundation Scholarship (2025). She received the Seume Literature Prize (2015) for her novel Westwärts soweit es nur geht (Westward as Far as Possible). Other publications include the novel Herr Hübner und die sibirische Nachtigall (Mr. Hübner and the Siberian Nightingale, 2014) and Briefe ohne Unterschrift – wie eine Radiosendung die DDR herausforderte (Letters Without a Signature – How a Radio Broadcast Challenged the GDR, 2017). The book inspired a traveling exhibition. Together with her sister Anna Schädlich, she published Ein Spaziergang war es nicht. Kindheiten zwischen Ost und West (It Wasn't a Walk: Childhoods Between East and West) (2012).

In June 2025, her new novel Kabarett der Namenlosen (Cabaret of the Nameless) was published by Arco-Verlag.