Heinrich Böll (1917–85,) fully Heinrich Theodor Böll, was a German novelist, short-story writer, and winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Literature. His satirical novels on the distress of life during and after World War II capture German society’s shifting personality.
Born in Cologne to a Roman Catholic family that later opposed the rise of Nazism, Böll was drafted into the German army as an infantryman. He was 22 and suffered “the frightful fate of being a soldier and having to wish that the war might be lost.”
Böll’s first novel, Der Zug war pünktlich (1956; The Train was on Time,) was published in 1949. A trilogy, Und sagte kein einziges Wort (1953; Acquainted with the Night, 1954,) Haus ohne Hüter (1954; The Unguarded House, 1957) and Das Brot der frühen Jahre (1955; The Bread of our Early Years, 1957,) depicting life in Germany during and after the Nazi regime, gained him a worldwide reputation.
A pacifist, Böll rendered a highly moral but individual vision of the society around him. His most famous book was Ansichten eines Clowns (1963; The Clown,) in which the central character declined by drinking from being a productive entertainer to a begging street musician.
A recurrent theme in Böll’s works was the individual’s recognition or rejection of personal accountability. His later novels, characteristically satirizing post-war German society, included Gruppenbild mit Dame (1971; Group Portrait with Lady, 1973) and Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (1974; The Lost Honour of Katherina Blum, 1975.) He also wrote several plays and a volume of poems.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Heinrich Boll
One ought to go too far, in order to know how far one can go.
—Heinrich Boll
Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation — whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel — involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.
—Heinrich Boll
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