Noll, Dieter

Born Dec. 31, 1927, in Riesa. German writer (German Democratic Republic). Member of the Communist Party of Germany (now the Socialist Unity Party of Germany) since 1946. Member of the Academy of Arts of the German Democratic Republic (1969).

Noll was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the end of World War II and was taken prisoner. After 1945 he studied philology, philosophy, and art history at the University of Jena. In 1950 he began contributing to the Berlin journal Aufbau (Construction). Noll’s early literary works are reports and novellas about everyday life in the period of socialist construction in the German Democratic Republic. Such works include Sun Over the Lakes (1954) and Mother of Pigeons (1955; Russian translation, 1963).

Noll’s novel The Adventures of Werner Holt (book 1, Youth, 1960—Russian translation, 1962; book 2, Return, 1963—Russian translation, 1964) enjoyed wide popularity. It deals with the fate of a young German who, having served in the fascist German army during World War II, seeks to make a new life for himself. The difficult and contradictory strivings of the novel’s hero are depicted vividly and with psychological insight. Noll has also written several screenplays. He received the H. Mann Prize in 1961 and the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic in 1963.