Wolfgang Borchert

Pamela S. Saur (Lamar University)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
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

Born 20 May 1921
Died 20 Nov 1947
Activity 1939-1947

Places

Born in Germany
Active in Germany

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist
Story-writer

Resources

Borchert's Works

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Worldwide acclaim greeted a radio and stage play on World War II and its aftermath written by a former German soldier and anti-Nazi dissident, Wolfgang Borchert, in 1947. The play,

Draussen vor der Tür

[

The Man Outside

], evoked a flood of mostly positive resonance after the initial broadcast by Northwest German Radio on 13 February 1947. The author, mortally ill after years of privation on the Russian front and in German prisons, died at age twenty-six, one day before the play's stage premiere in his native city of Hamburg. The play, published in English translation in 1952, along with several slim volumes of moving autobiographical short stories, earned Borchert renown as the voice of the maladjusted and suffering “homecoming” German soldier, and as the leading representative of…

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1279 words

Citation: Saur, Pamela S.. "Wolfgang Borchert". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 March 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11779, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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