Listen in as Martin Walser reads from his novel Ein springender Brunnen. Martin Walser was born in Wasserburg on Lake Constance in 1927. He studied Literature, History, and Philosophy in Regensburg and Tübingen, where he wrote his doctorate thesis on Franz Kafka in 1951. From 1949 to 1957, Walser worked as a reporter, director, and radio playwright for the Süddeutscher Rundfunk regional radio station. From 1953 onwards, he was a member of the Gruppe 47. He received the Hermann Hesse Prize for his first novel, Marriage in Philippsburg (1957). His work consists of prose, plays, film scripts, radio plays, and translations, as well as a great number of essays, speeches, and lectures. Walser, who has always expressed controversial opinions on subjects of current political interest alongside his literary activities, is one of the most significant authors of German postwar literature, and he has received countless prizes for his literary work, among them the Georg Büchner Prize in 1981. Today, Walser lives with his family as a freelancing writer near Lake Constance.

Recorded Thursday, November 3, 2011 at the Goethe-Institut Chicago.