Category: German Matters
German places and poetry and my humble attempts at translation- oh and yes, politics!

Born December 21, 1917, Heinrich Böll shaped postwar English literary thought through translation. His restrained realism offered a language for guilt, conscience, and responsibility after catastrophe, rejecting heroics and abstraction. By accounting for damage rather than dramatizing it, Böll taught English prose how moral seriousness can emerge through clarity, silence, and ethical restraint.
Birth of Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) – The Conscience That Entered English Through Postwar Prose

Born in 1797, Heinrich Heine reshaped English poetry without writing a line in English. Through translation and song, his lyrical brevity, irony, and musical clarity taught English verse to balance feeling with skepticism—showing that poetry could sing sweetly while smiling knowingly at itself.
Birth of Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) – The European Lyric Who Recast English Romantic Irony
Missing Tom Stoppard
That renowned street in Berlin

Born on November 12, 1929, Michael Ende transformed fantasy into philosophy and storytelling into reflection. Through The Neverending Story and Momo, he gave English readers a new language of imagination — one where reading becomes creation and stories never end, only begin again in the mind of each reader.
Birth of Michael Ende (1929 – 1995) – The Dreamsmith of Infinite Storytelling