Siegfried Lenz was born in Lyck, East Prussia on March 17, 1926. He was drafted into Nazi Germany's navy toward the end of World War II and deserted in its final days. After the war, he studied philosophy, English and literature at Hamburg University, but he left to work at the German newspaper Die Welt. He was a reporter and newspaper editor in the 1950s and ran election campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s.
Starting in 1951, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories and children's books. His works include The Heritage, The German Lesson, and The Selected Stories of Siegfried Lenz, which won a Thomas Mann Prize. In 1988, he won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. He died on October 7, 2014 at the age of 88.
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