German literature

German authors
  • 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

Uwe Johnson, 1934-1984

This German novelist was born in the city of Cammin, Vorpommern and studied at Rostock and Leipzig Universities. He formed part of the all important Group 47, perhaps the most important and influential literary-political association of post-war German literature.

Some of his repeated themes include the effect that the division of Germany had on the people on both sides, and his style changed as time went by, due to his concern and experiments regarding the language, points of view and time sequences. His vision is uncritical and he makes no moral judgments of his characters.

Some of his most important and well-known novels include Speculations about Jacob (1959), The Third Book on Achim (1962), Two Opinions (1965); his trilogy on modern German history, Anniversaries (1970-71-73) is also of particular interest. His first novel, Ingrid Bandererbe, was banned by the authorities, and was published much later in 1985.