It would remain unpublished for another seven years, before it would be presented to German readers and become a major success. When Boll died in 1985-a Nobel laureate and internationally acclaimed author-the manuscript of his first novel, “Der Engel Schwieg” (“The Silent Angel”) had lain unpublished for 34 years.
I took Boll’s books with me to Catholic boarding school as an adolescent, packed them into my suitcase when I immigrated to America as an 18-year-old. It was a time when most Germans were using their energies to forget the war, to push forward into a clean and tidy future by rebuilding bombed out buildings, by creating a history for their children that would make it impossible for them to ask questions about the war. From him-not from my family or teachers-I began to learn about German soldiers, about war widows and war orphans, about the impact of the war on the survivors. When I was growing up as a girl in the silence of postwar Germany, Heinrich Boll wrote about what other adults wouldn’t speak about.
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