Heinrich Böll and Ireland
Nobel Prize winning author Heinrich Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) which was first published in 1957, has been read by millions of German readers and has had an unsurpassed impact on the German image of Ireland. But there is much more to Heinrich Böll’s relationship with Ireland than the Irisches Tagebuch. In this new book, Böll scholar Gisela Holfter carefully charts Heinrich Böll’s personal and literary connections with Ireland and Irish literature from his reading Irish fairytales in early childhood, to establishing a second home on Achill Island and his and his wife Annemarie’s translations of numerous books by Irish authors such as Brendan Behan, J. M. Synge, G. B. Shaw, Flann O’Brien and Tomás O’Crohan. This book also examines the response in Ireland to Böll’s works, notably the controversy that ensued following the broadcast of his film Irland und seine Kinder (Children of Eire) in the 1960s.
Heinrich Böll and Ireland offers new insights for students, academics and the general reader alike.
Dr Gisela Holfter (MA, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, USA; PhD, Universität Köln, Germany) is Senior Lecturer in German and Joint Director of the Centre for Irish-German Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland. She researches Irish-German relations, exile studies, contemporary German literature and languages for specific purposes (Business German). Her many publications on Heinrich Böll include the edited volume Heinrich Böll’s ‘Irisches Tagebuch’ in Context (Trier: WVT, 2010).
“Holfter’s careful analysis of the book is a classic of academic approach and genuine feeling towards her subject. She deepens and broadens the appeal of the Irish Journal with sympathy and understanding . . . All in all Holfter’s scholarly work is excellent; the quality and clarity of her arguments are convincing.”
—John F. Deane, Irish Times, 21 January 2012
"This is the definite book on the subject of Heinrich Böll’s long-standing relationship with Ireland (…) Holfter’s treatise is rigorously scholarly."
Eoin Bourke, Germanistik in Ireland 2012
“I love when you get books like this that tell you about something that has been forgotten in some ways or has been falling between two stools . . . [Holfter] is very interesting about his life.”
—Sinead Gleeson on Arena, RTE Radio 1, 22 February 2012
"This is the definite book on the subject of Heinrich Böll’s long-standing relationship with Ireland (…) Holfter’s treatise is rigorously scholarly."
— Eoin Bourke, Germanistik in Ireland 2012
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