Editing Heinrich Böll (section)

==Analysis==
Böll's work has been dubbed ''[[Trümmerliteratur]]'' (the literature of the rubble). He was a leader of the German writers who tried to come to grips with the memory of [[World War II]], the [[Nazi Germany|Nazis]], the [[Holocaust]], and the guilt that came with them. Because of his refusal to avoid writing about the complexities and problems of the past, some called him the ''Gewissen der Nation'' ("conscience of the nation"), a catalyst and conduit for memorialization and discussion in opposition to the tendency toward silence and taboo. This was a label Böll was keen to jettison, because he felt that it occluded a fair audit of the institutions truly responsible for what had happened.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sargeant|first1=Maggie|title=Kitsch & Kunst: Presentations of a Lost War|date=2005|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=3-03910-512-4|pages=171–2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LUM0XLuvDlQC&q=%22Heinrich+Boll%22+%22biography&pg=PA171|access-date=29 June 2014}}</ref>

Böll lived with his wife in Cologne and in the [[Eifel|Eifel region]]. He also spent time on [[Achill Island]], off Ireland's west coast. His cottage there is now used as a guesthouse for international and Irish artists. He recorded some of his experiences in Ireland in his book ''[[Irish Journal]]''; later, the people of Achill curated a festival in his honour. The Irish connection also influenced the translations into German by his wife Annemarie, which included works by [[Brendan Behan]], [[J. M. Synge]], [[G. B. Shaw]], [[Flann O'Brien]], and [[Tomás Ó Criomhthain]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hboll.htm |title=Heinrich Böll |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006084809/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hboll.htm |archive-date=6 October 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Böll was president of the then West German [[P.E.N.]] and subsequently of the [[International P.E.N.]] organizations. He often traveled as a representative of the new, democratic Germany. His appearance and attitude completely contrasted with the boastful, aggressive type of German who had become infamous during [[Adolf Hitler]]'s rule. Böll was particularly successful in [[Eastern Europe]], as he seemed to portray the dark side of [[capitalism]] in his books, which sold by the millions in the [[Soviet Union]] alone.<ref>Peter Bruhn and Henry Glade:''[http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/~pbruhn/projboll.htm Heinrich Böll in der Sowjetunion, 1952–1979] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408182906/http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/~pbruhn/projboll.htm |date=8 April 2008 }} Einführung in die sowjetische Böll-Rezeption und Bibliographie der in der UdSSR in russischer Sprache erschienenen Schriften von und über Heinrich Böll'', Berlin 1980, {{ISBN|3-503-01617-1}}</ref>

When [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] was expelled from the Soviet Union, he first took refuge in Böll's Eifel cottage. This was in part the result of Böll's visit to the Soviet Union in 1962 with a cultural delegation, the first of several trips he made there, during which he made friendships with writers and connections with producers of dissident literature. With Solzhenitsyn's meeting, Böll responded to the criticism from both sides that branded him an instrument of anti-socialist propaganda or a stooge for the East Germans with the following statement: "perhaps many Germans do not read ''The Gulag Archipelago'' to experience the suffering of those to whom this monument is dedicated, but rather to forget the horror of their own history."<ref name="criterionchannel.com"/> As president of the West German P.E.N., Böll had recommended Solzhenitsyn for the Nobel Prize for Literature. When Solzhenitsyn received the prize in 1970, he quoted Böll's works to the reception committee.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Finlay|first1=Frank|title=On the Rationality of Poetry: Heinrich Böll's Aesthetic Thinking|date=1996|publisher=Rodopi|isbn=90-5183-989-8|pages=179–184|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzsnzwmIFGoC&q=%22Heinrich+Boll%22+Solzhenitsyn&pg=PA180|access-date=12 July 2014}}</ref>

In 1976, Böll publicly left the [[Catholic Church]], "without falling away from the faith".<ref>"vom Glauben abgefallen"</ref> He died in 1985 at the age of 67.