Martin Walser

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Martin Walser is a German playwright and novelist. He was born on 24th March 1927 in Wasserburg am Bodensee, on Lake Constance.

1 Life
2 Works
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Life

Martin Walser's parents kept an inn in Wasserburg. He described the environment in which he grew up in his novel Ein springender Brunnen. From 1938 to 1943 he was a pupil at the secondary school in Lindau and served in an anti-aircraft unit. He ended the Second World War as a solider in the Wehrmacht. After the end of the war he returned to his studies and completed his Abitur in 1946; he then studied literature, history and philosophy at Regensburg and Tübingen. He obtained his doctorate in 1951 for a thesis on Franz Kafka under the supervision of Friedrich Beißner.

His most important work is “Runaway Horse” which was not only very popular among readers , but also gained the recognition of literary critics.

While studying, Walser worked as a reporter for the Süddeutscher Rundfunk radio station, and wrote his first radio plays. In 1950 he married Katharina "Käthe" Neuner-Jehle. His four daughters from this marriage, Franziska Walser, Alissa Walser, Johanna Walser and Theresia Walser, are all career writers; Johanna sometimes collaborates with her father.

In October 1998, Walser caused controversy by introducing the phrase “using Auschwitz as a moral club”in his acceptance speech for the Frankfurt Book Fair’s prestigious Peace Prize. Ignatz Bubis, then the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, accused him of anti-Semitism sparking a heated public debate in Germany.^[1]