Rinser, Luise (1911–2002)

views updated

Rinser, Luise (1911–2002)

German novelist, short-story writer, diarist and essayist. Born 1911 in Pitzling, Bavaria; died Mar 17, 2002, in Upper Bavaria; dau. of devout Catholics; studied psychology at University of Munich and became a teacher.

Published 1st book, Die gläsernen Ringe (The Glass Rings, 1940), about a woman growing up under National Socialism, to great success, though it was banned from a 2nd edition; arrested by Nazis on charges of high treason and disruption of the military (Oct 1944), survived only because the documentary evidence against her was burned in an air raid; spent last months of WWII in prison; after the war, became one of the best-known German writers of the postwar period, publishing such works as Gefangnis-Tagebuch (Prison Diary, 1946), Hochebene (High Plateau, 1948), Die Stärkeren (Those Who Are Stronger, 1948), and the highly acclaimed Jan Lobel aus Warschau (Jan Lobel from Warsaw) and Mite des Lebens (Middle of Life, 1950); lived for many years in Rome.

See also autobiography, Wolf umarmen (Embracing the Wolf, 1981).