This collection of stories written between 1946 and 1952, by the winner of the 1972 Nobel Peace Prize for Literature tells of the despair and hardship of ordinary Germans caught up in a brutal war. The horrors depicted in terms of both human tradegy and spiritual degradation aim to dispel the myth that all Germans supported Hitler and his war. Boll describes the struggle of the common man, trapped in muddy holes at the Russian front or amid the rubble of devastated cities, desperate to survive and to preserve his humanity. The author's work includes "Absent Without Leave" and "The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum" which was made into a film. He died in 1985.