ABSTRACT
Martin Walser was born on March 24, 1927 in Wasserburg am Bodensee, near Lake Constance. After his schooldays he studied literature, history and philosophy in Regensburg and Tübingen. In 1951 he obtained his doctorate for his thesis on Kafka. He became famous for his first novel Ehen in Philippsburg, published in 1957.1 His greatest success was Ein fliehendes Pferd from 1978,2 in which Kierkegaard plays an important role. Since the late 1980s he has repeatedly given rise to political debates on German national identity, for example in the debate on the German division (1988) and in the so-called Walser-Bubis debate (1998).
