Stefan Andres owes his reputation as a major twentieth-century German Catholic writer primarily to the great success of his novella Wir sind Utopia (We Are Utopia, 1943; translated as We Are God's Utopia, 1950). His Moselländische Novellen (Novellas about the Moselle River, 1937), which incorporate local settings and childhood experiences, and the nonfiction writings Die großen Weine Deutschlands (The Great Wines of Germany, 1960) and Die Mosel (The Moselle, 1968) also brought him popular acclaim. Andres's works have been translated into Dutch, Swedish, English, and Polish, and in Germany he was among the most widely read authors during the 1950s and 1960s. As a result of his experience of Nazism, Andres rejects any form of totalitarianism and upholds the freedom of the individual in his speeches, essays, and many of his works of fiction.

Andres's evolution as an author passed through three stages. The early work centers on autobiographical...