German literature

One of the most important figures of post-war German literature, this writer, essayist and poet was born in 1929 in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria. After studying Germanistics, Literature and Philosophy at the universities of Erlangen, Friburg and Hamburg, and at the Sorbonne in Paris, he worked as a journalist, professor, writer, essayist and editor.

From 1965 to 1975, he formed a part of Group 47, an association of authors that sought to revitalize German language and literature after the Nazi era. In 1965 he founded the magazine Kursbuch, and directed a literary collection from 1985 onwards. The places he has lived in, besides Germany, include Norway, Italy, USA, Mexico and Cuba.

Enzensberger began his literary career in 1957, with the publication of a book of poems Defense of the Wolves, followed by another poetry book, Speaking German (1960). In his essays he profoundly criticized the political system and the media: this is evident in Details (1962-1964), Politics and Crime (1964) and Elements for the theory of the media (1971).

The political movements of the 60's, and especially the French uprising in May '68, compelled Enzensberger to call upon all other intellectuals to take an active role in the "German political literacy campaign", an idea that he himself put into practice in his documentary The Havana Questioning (1970) and in the novel The Short Summer of Anarchy: the Life and Death of Durruti (1972).

Other works that compile his collection include Mausoleum (1975), The Sinking of the Titanic (1978), The Philanthropist (1984), The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure(1997) and here are you, Robert? (1998). One of his most recent publications is The elixirs of Science (2002), a selection of essays and poems.