Trivia

Being awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, he criticized in his acceptance speech that the debate about the Third Reich's cruelties was overestimated in the intellectual and everyday life in Germany. His statement arouse an emotional public discussion. Ignatz Bubis, influential chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, accused Walser of wanting to "normalize" the Nazi past. Their following, partly furious dispute was later called "The Walser-Bubis Debate" (11 October 1998).

He was accused of anti-Semitism, when his book "Tod eines Kritikers" (Death of a Critic) was released. In this crime story, the (apparently) murdered Jewish character "André Ehrl-Koenig" was portrayed to be a selfish, rude and arrogant person. Though fictive, the character had clearly been derived from famous Jewish literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki. The influential publisher of German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 'Frank Schirrmacher', scourged the book to be "a document of hate". In the following public discussion, Walser always strongly denied to be anti-Semitic (2002).

One of Germany's most successful living authors, writing successful novels such as "Rabbit race" (1963), "Runaway horse" (1978) or "No Man's Land" (1988).

Father-in-law of actor Edgar Selge and lyricist Sascha Anderson.

His parents owned an inn on Lake Constance.

Studied literature, philosophy and history at the Univeristy of Regensburg and Tübingen.

Walser was awarded the Hermann Hesse Prize in 1957 for his first novel.

He received the Georg Büchner Prize in 1981, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1998, and the Friedrich Nietzsche Prize in 2015 for his life's achievements.

In 2007 the German political magazine Cicero placed Walser second on its list of the 500 most important German intellectuals, behind Pope Benedict XVI and ahead of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass.

In 2004 Walser left his long-time publisher Suhrkamp Verlag for Rowohlt Verlag, after the death of Suhrkamp director Siegfried Unseld. An unusual clause in his contract with Suhrkamp made it possible to take publishing rights for all his works with him. According to Walser, a decisive factor in making the switch was the lack of active support by his publisher during the controversy over his novel Tod eines Kritikers (Death of a Critic).