This section contains 7,395 words (approx. 25 pages at 300 words per page) |
Dictionary of Literary Biography on Heinrich (Theodor) Boell
When in the summer of 1972 Heinrich Böll received the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, he responded with the surprised question: "Was, ich, und nicht Günter Grass"" (Really? I, and not Günter Grass"). This reaction summarizes Böll's assessment of his place in West German postwar literature--sometimes referred to as "Grass-Böll-literature"--and it reflects Böll's competition with Grass, who is generally regarded by critics as the superior writer. Böll's sales figures, however, tell a different story: with 31 million books in print and having been translated into forty-five languages, he is by far the most popular of all modern German writers. In his unpretentious style he became a chronologist of the first forty years of the Federal Republic of Germany. The reader recognizes himself and people he knows in Bö...
This section contains 7,395 words (approx. 25 pages at 300 words per page) |