Gerd Gaiser grew up in the upheaval surrounding World War I, came of age in the year of the stock market crash, and fought in World War II. His career--really only an avocation--as a writer flourished after the war, bringing a number of distinctions: the Fontane Prize in 1951, the Prize for Literature from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in 1955, election to the prestigious Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1956, the Immermann Prize in 1959, and the Wilhelm Raabe Prize in 1956 and 1960. In the turbulent 1960s his nostalgic conservatism and the gentle restraint of his prose had little appeal, and his popularity went into a decline from which it has not recovered. Gaiser's work includes one of Germany's finest war novels; many of his other tales are sensitive reflections of postwar moods and concerns, particularly skepticism toward the new affluent society.

Gerhard Gaiser was born in 1908 in Oberriexingen, W...