Heinrich Boll
Heinrich Boll
Heinrich Theodor Böllwas one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 December 1917
CityCologne, Germany
CountryGermany
december destroyed few relatives settled
As early as December 1945, I accompanied my wife and a few relatives in their return from evacuation in the countryside to Cologne, where over the years we settled down in a destroyed house.
allowed man perform
We must learn, and especially we Germans, that resistance is not only possible and allowed in dictatorships. There is resistance that man must perform every day.
cologne heavy left met retreat roman visit
On a visit to Cologne in March 1945, after a heavy bombing, I met hundreds and hundreds of deserters who were squatting in the rubble, many in the deep cellars left from Roman times. They had been hiding there after the retreat from France.
joys love totally turned
No one will ever know how many novels, poems, analyses, confessions, sufferings and joys have been piled up on this continent called Love, without it ever having turned out to be totally investigated.
certain german marvel passages
My most interesting correspondence is with my translators. I marvel at their sensitivity over certain passages that just anyone, even if he knows German well, would not appreciate.
begin classical labour permission studies study term
Because the completion of labour service was a precondition for permission to study at the university, I was able to begin my studies of Germanistics and Classical Philology during the summer term of 1939.
believe war
The war is not planned. I don't believe that any responsible person plans it. But it's thought as possible.
again provide solved time
Politicians, ideologists, theologians and philosophers try time and again to provide solutions with nothing remaining: prefab solved problems.
Medals don't suit me. I'm not that kind of guy.
life literature soviet
Literature has its own life, even in a dictatorship like the Soviet Union.
german sounds stranger
For me, at least, much of the German I see and hear sounds stranger than Swedish, a language of which I unfortunately understand very little.
easily
It's true and it's easily said that language is material, and something does materialise as one writes.
december sculptor
I was born December 21, 1917, in Cologne, on the Rhine, the son of the sculptor and cabinet-maker, Viktor Boell, and his wife, Maria, nee Hermanns.
age time
I long for the time of no more departures. It has something to do with age, probably.