Heinrich Böll

Achill Island, the westernmost tip of Ireland, was a retreat and source of inspiration for Heinrich Böll. He immortalized it in his Irish Journal, and the local people thank him to this day with an annual Memorial Weekend. 

This essayistic anachronism imagines Böll's novella The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1974) as if it were unfolding in contemporary times in an era of populism and rising conservatism, in which female sexuality is still richly milked as a sensational cover for abuse of patriarchal power.

The editors of the recently published anthology of non-fiction writings by Heinrich Böll, in Hebrew, share thoughts and comments about the celebrated author and Nobel Prize laureate. Adina Stern and Hanan Elstein also reflect on the process of their work, and explain why they believe that Böll’s work is highly relevant to contemporary Israeli society.