BIOGRAPHY OF HEINRICH BÖLL
1970 - 1980: The meddlesome Nobel laureate
1970
Böll is elected president of West Germany's PEN.
1971
Publication of "Group Portrait with Lady". At the 38th meeting of the International PEN Club in Dublin, Böll is elected president. He organises a public campaign appealing to the US government to drop proceedings against civil rights activist Angela Davis.
1972
Heinrich Böll is awarded the Nobel Price for Literature.
1973
"Group Portrait with Lady" is selected as book of the month in the USA. In reaction to the increasing persecution of writers and intellectuals world-wide, Böll appeals to politicians in East and West alike to "finally abandon the hypocritical concept of non-intervention into other countries' domestic affairs."
1974
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is arrested by Soviet authorities and, following international protests, expatriated from the Soviet Union. He comes to Germany where he stays with Böll. Publication of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.