W. G. Sebald
| W. G. Sebald | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Winfried Georg Sebald 18 May 1944 Wertach, Gau Swabia, Germany |
| Died | 14 December 2001 (aged 57) Norfolk, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Writer, academic |
| Language | German |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater |
University of Freiburg University of Fribourg University of East Anglia (PhD) |
| Notable works |
Vertigo The Emigrants The Rings of Saturn Austerlitz |
 Max Sebald
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Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001) — known as W. G. Sebald or Max Sebald — was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In a 2007 interview, Horace Engdahl, former secretary of the Swedish Academy, mentioned Sebald, Ryszard Kapuściński and Jacques Derrida as three recently deceased writers who would have been worthy laureates.
Sebald was born in Wertach, Bavaria, one of three children of Rosa and Georg Sebald. From 1948 to 1963, he lived in Sonthofen. His father joined the Reichswehr in 1929 and remained in the Wehrmacht under the Nazis. His father remained a detached figure, a prisoner of war until 1947; a grandfather was the most important male presence in his early years. Sebald was shown images of the Holocaust while at school in Oberstdorf and recalled that no one knew how to explain what they had just seen. The Holocaust and post-war Germany loom large in his work.
Sebald studied German and English literature first at the University of Freiburg and then at the University of Fribourg, where he received a degree in 1965. He was a Lector at the University of Manchester from 1966 to 1969. He returned to St. Gallen in Switzerland for a year hoping to work as a teacher but could not settle. Sebald married his Austrian-born wife, Ute, in 1967. In 1970 he became a lecturer at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia entitled "The Revival of Myth: A Study of Alfred Döblin's Novels" in 1973. Sebald acquired habilitation from the University of Hamburg in 1986. In 1987, he was appointed to a chair of European literature at UEA. In 1989 he became the founding director of the British Centre for Literary Translation. He lived at Wymondham and Poringland while at UEA.
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