Missing Persons and Other Essays

The only collection of BÖll's nonfiction prose to be published in English, these twenty-nine essays, reviews, and speeches--including his 1972 Nobel lecture--reflect the same moral passion and deep wisdom that resonate through his fiction. Here is BÖll the Nobel laureate and BÖll the private man: his compassion, his unblinking view of the tragedies of war, his satiric opinions of modern society, and his reflections on life and literature.

"His concerns and opinions are deeply-felt and driven by decency, and it is instructive and illuminating to hear a great novelist search out a voice for his own, stand-up-and-be-counted, direct speech. There's no need for coyness or irony here: BÖll was a great novelist." --American Bookseller