"for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature."
The 1972 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the German author Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) "for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature."[1][2] Böll is the fifth German author to be recipient of the prize.[a]
The events of World War II had a significant influence on Heinrich Böll's literature. In his debut novel Der Zug war pünktlich ("The Train Was on Time", 1949) and the short story collection Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa... ("Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans We...", 1950), he illustrated the folly of war and the pain it causes. Böll published a number of books that critiqued West German society after World War II, such as Gruppenbild mit Dame ("Group Portrait with Lady", 1971). Among his best-known works include Und sagte kein einziges Wort ("And Never Said a Word", 1953), Ansichten eines Clowns ("The Clowns", 1963), and Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum ("The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum", 1974).[3][4]
In 1972, the Swedish Academy received 158 nominations for 100 writers. Böll started earning nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1960. In total, he received 29 nominations with the highest number in 1972 which eventually led to his awarding.[5]
In 1972, the Nobel committee comprised of author, critic and permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Karl Ragnar Gierow (chair), author and critic Johannes Edfelt, author Lars Gyllensten, author Eyvind Johnson, author and critic Artur Lundkvist and author and critic Anders Österling.[8] The reports from members of the committee made public fifty years later reveal that the committee for the 1972 Nobel Prize in Literature firstly focused on awarding an author from the field of German literature.[9]
Heinrich Böll had been considered for the prize by the Nobel committee since the first time he was nominated in 1960. The publication of Gruppenbild mit Dame in 1971, a year when Böll was not nominated for the prize, strengthened his candidacy, and in 1972 the Nobel committee proposed that Böll should be awarded the prize.[9] A shared prize between Böll and Günter Grass was proposed by the committee. The other final candidates were the Italian poet Eugenio Montale and Australian novelist Patrick White.[9][10]
Karl Ragnar Gierow said in his report that his evaluation emphasized "tactical evaluation rather than literary valuations". While saying that Eugenio Montale's work to him appeared as the "artistically maturest and most essential", Gierow did not want to place Montale first among the candidates but argued that German literature for long had been neglected by the Nobel committee and that there were now two serious candidates in Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, and also mentioned Siegfried Lenz. Gierow listed Böll as his first proposal, a shared prize to Böll and Grass as his second proposal, White as the third and Montale as the fourth proposal. Committee member Lars Gyllensten made a similar proposal in his report, saying that Böll was the strongest candidate but that a shared prize with Grass could also be well motivated. Committee member Artur Lundkvist agreed that the German literature was "highly worthy to be recognised" and supported the committees recommendation of Böll as the first proposal, while saying that he would put Patrick White's work ahead of Böll's.[9]
Nobel lecture
Böll delivered a Nobel lecture entitled An Essay on the Reason of Poetry on May 2, 1973 at the Swedish Academy.[11] In his lecture, he said:
"Art is always a good hiding-place, not for dynamite, but for intellectual explosives and social time bombs. Why would there otherwise have been the various Indices? And precisely in their despised and often even despicable beauty and lack of transparency lies the best hiding-place for the barb that brings about the sudden jerk or the sudden recognition."[11]
Notes
^Heinrich Böll is the first German citizen to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature since Thomas Mann won it in 1929. Hermann Hesse, born in Germany, was a Swiss citizen when he won the prize in 1946. The late poet Nelly Sachs, who was born in Germany and wrote in German, was honored in 1966, but she was a Swedish subject.[2]
