W. G. Sebald, known to his colleagues and friends as “Max”, emerged as an internationally significant writer of fiction in the mid-1990s after some 25 years in which he was known principally among German scholars for his highly original contributions on Austrian writing. He was born in 1944 in Wertach im Allgäu (Bavaria, Germany). He gained his academic qualifications in Fribourg (Switzerland; LèsL), Manchester (England; MA), Norwich (England; PhD), and Hamburg (Germany; Dr phil habil). He worked briefly as a teacher in St Gallen (Switzerland) before taking up a lectureship at the University of East Anglia (Norwich) in 1970, where he became Professor of European Literature (1987) and founding Director of the British Centre for Literary T

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First published 24 April 2002

Citation: Williams, Arthur. "W. G. Sebald". The Literary Encyclopedia. 24 April 2002.
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