Heinrich Böll, Gruppenbild mit Dame [Group Portrait with Lady]

Hannelore G. Mundt (University of Wyoming)

Ed. by Jennifer Marston William, Purdue University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1971

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

In Böll’s long and highly productive career, Gruppenbild mit Dame [Group Portrait with Lady, 1971] stands out as his most ambitious novel and, as many critics believe, his magnum opus, which secured him the Nobel Prize in Literature one year later. It is Böll’s first novel to center on a female character, Leni Pfeiffer. In an interview, Böll mentioned that for some time he had wanted to write about the fate of a German woman of his own age who is burdened by and carries the whole weight of German history from 1922 to 1970 [Böll, Victor and Renate Matthaei (eds.), Querschnitte: Aus Interview, Aufsätzen und Reden von Heinrich Böll (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1977), 1…

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2787 words

Citation: Mundt, Hannelore G.. "Gruppenbild mit Dame". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 January 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16217, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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