Who was Heinrich Böll?

Heinrich Theodor Böll (21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was one of Germany's most important post-World War II authors. He was awarded Germany's most prestigious literary award, the Georg Büchner Prize, in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.

His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he remains one of Germany's most widely read authors. His best-known works are Billiards at Half-past Nine (1959), And Never Said a Word (1953), The Bread of Those Early Years (1955), The Clown (1963), Group Portrait with Lady (1971), The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1974), and The Safety Net (1979).

Despite the variety of themes and content in his work, there are certain recurring patterns: many of his novels and stories describe characters struggling to sustain themselves against the wider background of war, terrorism, political divisions, and profound economic and social transition. In a number of his books, there are protagonists who are stubborn and eccentric individualists opposed to the mechanisms of the state or of public institutions.