Günter Grass and Imre Kertész

Günter Grass: born October 16, 1927 in Danzig-Langfuhr. Soldier, prisoner-of-war under the Americans, farm worker and laborer near Hildesheim. Stonemason apprenticeship in Düsseldorf, college studies of graphics and sculpture. Lyricist, dramatist, writer, 1999 recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature.

Imre Kertész: born November 9, 1929 in Budapest of Jewish background. In 1944, at the age of 15, deported to Auschwitz, liberated in 1945 in Buchenwald. After his return to Hungary, worked as a journalist, as of 1953 as a free-lance writer and translater of German- language authors. In 2002 receipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.