W.G. Sebald
author profile
born
May 18, 1944
died
December 14, 2001
gender
male
place of birth
Wertach im Allgäu, Germany
website
genre
Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Travel
about this author
Obituary
German writer shaped by the 'forgetfulness' of his fellow countrymen after the second world war
Eric Homberger
The Guardian, Monday 17 December 2001
"I don't think one can write from a compromised moral position," remarked the German writer WG Sebald, who has died, aged 57, in a car crash in East Anglia. That scruple put him at odds with much of contemporary writing.
Scorning the Holocaust "industry", and what he referred to as an official culture of mourning and remembering, Sebald disliked feel-good sentimental portrayals of terrible events - such as Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark. He claimed no false intimacy with the dead.
He wanted to find a lit...more
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avg rating: 4.20
| 3,721 ratings
| 404 reviews
| 23 distinct works
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More books by W.G. Sebald…
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Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, Anthea Bell avg rating 4.11 — 861 ratings — published 2001 18 editions |
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The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald avg rating 4.36 — 779 ratings — published 1995 16 editions |
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The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald avg rating 4.28 — 571 ratings — published 1992 16 editions |
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Vertigo by W.G. Sebald avg rating 4.08 — 321 ratings — published 1990 14 editions |
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On the Natural History of Destruction by W.G. Sebald avg rating 4.02 — 166 ratings — published 2002 10 editions |
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After Nature by W.G. Sebald avg rating 3.90 — 105 ratings — published 1995 8 editions |
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Campo Santo by W.G. Sebald avg rating 3.94 — 68 ratings — published 2003 8 editions |
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Unrecounted by W.G. Sebald avg rating 4.16 — 19 ratings — published 2003 5 editions |
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For Years Now: Poems by W. G. Sebald Images by Tess Jaray by W.G. Sebald avg rating 3.90 — 10 ratings — published 2001 2 editions |
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Luftkreig Und Literatur by W.G. Sebald avg rating 2.67 — 3 ratings — published 1999 2 editions |
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upcoming events
No scheduled events.
"It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane."
— W.G. Sebald (Vertigo)
— W.G. Sebald (Vertigo)
"After resting in the cool, shadowy interior for a while, with feelings of both gratitude and distaste, he set off once more, and as he left, just as one might ruffle the hair of a son or younger brother, he ran his fingers over the marble locks of a dwarfish figure which, at the foot of one of the mighty columns, had been bearing the immense weight of a holy-water font for centuries."
— W.G. Sebald (Vertigo)
— W.G. Sebald (Vertigo)
tags:
sentences
1 person liked it
"No matter whether one is flying over Newfoundland or the sea of lights that stretches from Boston to Philadelphia after nightfall, over the Arabian deserts which gleam like mother-of-pearl, over the Ruhr or the city of Frankfurt, it is as though there were no people, only the thins they have made and in which they are hiding."
— W.G. Sebald (The Rings of Saturn)
— W.G. Sebald (The Rings of Saturn)
topics mentioning this author
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Next Best Boo...: The Last Letter Game | 1263 | 1142 | Aug 20, 2009 12:29PM | |
| fiction files redux: * Please allow you to introduce yourself... | 104 | 189 | Aug 26, 2009 03:21AM | |
| The Seasonal Read...: German Task | 39 | 140 | Aug 28, 2009 04:47AM | |
| Read a book from ...: Germany | 28 | 172 | Sep 01, 2009 12:23PM |































