In the course of many centuries of German-language literature, countless talented writers emerged, not only in Germany itself but also in Swiss and Austria. As of 2009, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German language authors thirteen times. These are just a few of some of the most important authors in German literature:

• Angelus Silesius
• Heinrich Böll
• Bertolt Brecht
• Karl Georg Büchner
• Hans Magnus Enzensberger
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Günter Grass
• Brothers Grimm
• Hans von Grimmelshausen
• Peter Handke
• Gerhart Hauptmann
• Heinrich Heine
• Heinrich der Glïchezäre
• Johann Gottfried von Herder
• Hermann Hesse
• Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann
• Friedrich Hölderlin
• Uwe Johnson
• Siegfried Lenz
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
• Thomas Mann
• Robert Musil
• Novalis
• Jean Paul Richter
• Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
• Friedrich von Schiller
• Arthur Schnitzler
• Georg Trakl
• Frank Wedekind
• Christa Wolf