21 December 1917 16 January 1985 On 21 December 1917, when the Germany of Wilhelm II hasn't understood that ten months will know a defeat of enormous proportions that will put an end to the austro-Hungarian Empire, in Cologne comes to light Heinrich Böll. Son of Viktor, Carpenter with the passion of wood carvings and Mary, descended from a family of brewers, Heinrich will follow in the footsteps of parents in Catholic faith and pacifism. In 1937 he obtained his maturity and, to satisfy the fascination that books exert over him, he found a job as an apprentice in a bookstore, while starts giving free rein to his literary flair. In 1939, he wrote his first novel, "on the edge of the Church" and undertook graduate studies in literature and Philology, but opposing the Nazi regime, he viscerally together with his family, forces him to take up arms: fights for six years on many fronts, from France until Russia finally interned in a concentration camp in 1945. Will this ordeal in "tied", written in 1948 but published posthumously in the years ' 80, from which emerges the infinite sadness but also great anger of a young man forced to fight a war that abhors on behalf of a regime that loathes. Only consolation in these years are the letters of Annemarie Cech, a girl who knows since, children spent hours together in the carefree childhood games, and whom he married in 1942. Back to Colony devastated by bombing, pulls a living by helping the brother who followed in his father's footsteps as a Carpenter, but meanwhile writes and begins to publish some stories first published in the magazine "Karussel", then on "Literary Revue" and finally on "Frankfurter Hefte; Meanwhile resumed his university studies. In 1949 he published "the train was on time," but the confirmation of its notoriety comes with twenty-five tales of "Wayfarer, if you come to Spa ...", 1950. The following year he was received into the "Group 47", said intellectual and literary forum, during which he won a competition with the satire "the black sheep". In the years following Heinrich Boll enters the prime of his literary maturity, producing intense and almost frantic that will last until 1966. It is 1953 what remains perhaps his most appreciated, "and said even a word" that contains, among other things, the contentious first hints towards a Catholic Church that he sees too much trouble to preserve relationships with political and economic powers and little attentive to the plight of the poor. After the challenging "Billiards at nine thirty", 1959, in 1963 he published "the clown" who collects a huge success being among his main works. His health suddenly become precarious since 1966, force him to significantly reduce literary engagement, but meanwhile manages to engage in radio drama and theater. In 1971, while takes over the Presidency of the International PEN Club, another important gathering of writers, published "group portrait with Lady", also very successful novel in which realistic and introspective tells the story of German society since the end of the Empire to the strongly innovative student protests of beaded 60. In 1972 reaches the highest reward for a writer, with the award of the Nobel Prize for literature, but his artistic talent still has a lot to offer, like the novels "the lost honour of Katharina Blum" (1974), "Siege" (1979) and "women with river landscape" (1985). In recent years comes to an intense literary activity engagement in the peace movement. Heinrich Boll goes off at the age of 68 years, the July 16, 1985, at his home in Irish artists, in North Rhine-Westphalia, where in 1974 he had hosted Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His work is focused on the historical events of his Germany from the perspective of a generation, it's no longer willing to endure the imperialist schemes and totalitarian regimes but also incapable of accepting the hypocrisy and conformism of the new democratic society of post-Nazism.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.