1953 - 1959: The making of a reputation

1953
The novel "Acquainted with the Night" is published; it is Böll's first literary and commercial success.

1954
Publication of the novel "Tomorrow and Yesterday". First visit to Ireland; from then on Böll will spend long periods in Ireland where, according to his workbook, 68 pieces long and short were written - among them the novel "The Bread of Those Early Years". In the years to come, with the sometime assistance of Heinrich Böll, Annemarie Böll will translate a number of Irish writers into German, among them Shaw, Sean O'Casey, Synge, Flann O'Brien and Brendan Behan.

1955
Publication of "The Bread of Those Early Years". "Tomorrow and Yesterday" wins the French publishers' award for best foreign novel.  Böll becomes member of West Germany's PEN.

1956
Along with 105 artists and writers (among them Sartre, Camus and Picasso), Böll signs a petition in protest against the Soviet Union's quashing of the Hungarian uprising as well as against the French and British invasion of Egypt.

1957
Publication of the "Irish Journal" part of which had been serialised from 1954 onwards.

1958
Publication of "Murke's Collected Silences"

1959
"Billiards at Half-Past Nine" published