Heinrich Böll: Forty Years of Criticism

Heinrich Böll’s many novels were translated into 45 languages, and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. Thereafter, in the 1970s his fame eclipsed that of any other cultural figure in Germany. His writing is generally perceived as remarkably unpretentious and “unliterary”. Professor Zachau’s book analyzes the critical response to one of Germany’s great writers in a thorough analysis which shows him to have been more “literary” and less “popular” than had been assumed.