READ Famous Novelists from Germany

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Danielle Steel age 70 Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel, better known by the name Danielle Steel, is an American novelist, currently the best selling author alive and the fourth bestselling author of all ...more

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Kurt Vonnegut Dec. at 85 (1922-2007) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was an American writer. His works, such as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions, blend satire, gallows humor, and science fiction. As a citizen, he ...more

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Dec. at 83 (1749-1832) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an ...more

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Sylvia Plath Dec. at 31 (1932-1963) Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, before ...more

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Charles Bukowski Dec. at 74 (1920-1994) Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and beautiful economic ambience of his home city of ...more

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Mary Astor Died at 81 (1906-1987) Mary Astor was an American actress. Best remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of ...more

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Henry Miller Dec. at 89 (1891-1980) Henry Valentine Miller was an American writer. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms, developing a new sort of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social ...more

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Rainer Maria Rilke Dec. at 51 (1875-1926) René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke —better known as Rainer Maria Rilke —was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense ...more

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Hanns Heinz Ewers Dec. at 72 (1871-1943) Hanns Heinz Ewers was a German actor, poet, philosopher, and writer of short stories and novels. While he wrote on a wide range of subjects, he is now known mainly for his works of horror, ...more

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Karl May Dec. at 70 (1842-1912) Karl Friedrich May was a popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East. In addition, he wrote stories ...more

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Hermann Hesse Dec. at 85 (1877-1962) Hermann Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search ...more

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Louise Erdrich age 63 Louise Erdrich is an Ojibwe writer of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa ...more

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Betty Smith Dec. at 76 (1896-1972) Betty Smith, née Elisabeth Wehner, was an American author.

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Theodore Dreiser Dec. at 74 (1871-1945) Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a ...more

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Heinz Günther Dec. at 78 (1921-1999) Heinz G. Konsalik, pseudonym of Heinz Günther was a German novelist. Konsalik was his mother's maiden name. During the Second World War he was a war correspondent that provided many ...more

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L. Frank Baum Died at 63 (1856-1919) Lyman Frank Baum, better known by his pen name L. Frank Baum, was an American author chiefly known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen novel ...more

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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Dec. at 86 (1927-2013) Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, CBE was a German-born British and American Booker prize-winning novelist, short story writer and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. She is perhaps best known for ...more

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Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Dec. at 51 (1797-1848) Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria, Freiin von Droste zu Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, was a 19th-century German writer and composer. She was ...more

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Hans Peter Richter Dec. at 68 (1925-1993) Hans Peter Richter was a German author. He was born in Cologne, Germany, went to school in Germany, studied at the university of Hannover, and graduated in 1968. He also spent some of his life ...more

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Anita Desai age 80 Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the ...more

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Lois Wyse Dec. at 81 (1926-2007) Lois Wyse was an American advertising executive, author and columnist. At the time of her death, Wyse was credited with writing more than 60 books on diverse topics such as business, love and

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Hermann Schmid Hermann Theodor von Schmid was an Austrian-German novelist, dramatist, and theatre director.

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Denis Johnson age 68 Denis Hale Johnson is an American writer best known for his short story collection Jesus' Son and his novel Tree of Smoke, which won the National Book Award for Fiction. He also writes plays, ...more

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Arno Schmidt Dec. at 65 (1914-1979) Arno Schmidt was a German author and translator. Although little known outside of German-speaking areas, as his works present formidable challenges to translators, and not one of the popular ...more

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Alfred Döblin Dec. at 79 (1878-1957) Bruno Alfred Döblin was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide ...more

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Günter Grass age 90 Günter Wilhelm Grass was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. Grass was of mixed Kashubian-German ...more

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Herta Müller age 64 Herta Müller is a German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf, Timiș County in Romania, her native language is German. Since the ...more

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Curt Siodmak Dec. at 98 (1902-2000) Curt Siodmak was a novelist and screenwriter. He made a name for himself in Hollywood with horror and science fiction films, most notably The Wolf Man and Donovan's Brain. He was the younger ...more

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Cornelia Funke age 59 Cornelia Maria Funke is a German author of children's fiction. She was born on December 10, 1958, in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia. Funke is best known for her Inkheart trilogy, published in ...more

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Werner Bergengruen Dec. at 72 (1892-1964) Werner Bergengruen was a Baltic German novelist and poet.

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Bruno Frank Dec. at 58 (1887-1945) Bruno Frank was a German author, poet, dramatist, and humanist. Frank studied law and philosophy in Munich, where he later worked as a dramatist and novelist until the Reichstag fire in 1933. ...more

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Gerhart Hauptmann Dec. at 84 (1862-1946) Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He ...more

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Stefan Heym Dec. at 88 (1913-2001) Helmut Flieg was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym. He lived in the United States between 1935 and 1952, before moving back to the part of his native Germany which was, from ...more

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Heinrich Böll Dec. at 68 (1917-1985) Heinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.

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Heinrich Mann Dec. at 79 (1871-1950) Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His numerous criticisms of the growth of fascism forced him to flee for his life after the Nazis came to power ...more

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Alfred Andersch Dec. at 66 (1914-1980) Alfred Hellmuth Andersch was a German writer, publisher, and radio editor. The son of a conservative East Prussian army officer, he was born in Munich, Germany and died in Berzona, Ticino, ...more

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Peter Berling age 81 Peter Berling is a German actor and writer. He has worked on several occasions with director Werner Herzog, in his collaborations with actor Klaus Kinski. In several of his medieval novels ...more

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Heinrich von Kleist Dec. at 34 (1777-1811) Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a German poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.

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Paul Maar age 80 Paul Maar is one of the most important modern German writers for children and young people. He is a novelist, playwright, translator and illustrator.

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Jutta Bauer age 63 Jutta Bauer is a German writer and illustrator of children's books. For her "lasting contribution" as a children's illustrator she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2010.

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Claudia Schreiber age 60 Claudia Schreiber is a German journalist and author. After studying journalism, education science and sociology at the University of Göttingen and University of Mainz, 1979 – 1985, M.A. ...more

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Friedrich Hölderlin Dec. at 73 (1770-1843) Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the ...more

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Gustav Freytag Dec. at 79 (1816-1895) Gustav Freytag was a German novelist and playwright.

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Hans-Otto Meissner Dec. at 83 (1909-1992) Hans-Otto Meissner was a German writer and novelist. The son of prominent German diplomat Otto Meissner, Hans-Otto Meissner studied law at Heidelberg and Trinity College, Cambridge, after which ...more

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Hans Hellmut Kirst Dec. at 75 (1914-1989) Hans Hellmut Kirst was a distinguished German novelist and the author of 46 books, many of which were translated into English. Kirst is best remembered as the creator of the "Gunner ...more

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Martin Walser age 91 Martin Walser is a German writer. He became famous for describing the conflicts his anti-heroes have in his novels and stories. In 1998 he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in ...more

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Hans Carossa Dec. at 78 (1878-1956) Hans Carossa was a German novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his "innere Emigration" during the Nazi era. He was born in Bad Tölz, Bavaria and ...more

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Ingrid Pitt Dec. at 73 (1937-2010) Ingrid Pitt was a Polish-British actress best known for her work in horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.

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Arnold Zweig Dec. at 81 (1887-1968) Arnold Zweig was a German writer and anti-war and antifascist activist. He is best known for his six-part cycle on World War I.

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Theodor Fontane Dec. at 79 (1819-1898) Theodor Fontane was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.