Hans Fallada (1909-1945) was one of the most important and influential German authors of the 20th century and a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature (1947). He was explicit in his autobiographical works, which were published after his death by his wife, Elisabeth. Fallada wrote six novels and four plays. The novels, which were originally written in the form of letters to his wife, describe the life of a Berlin family in postwar Germany
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The plays deal with contemporary problems and are set in Berlin and on a farm — thus they anticipate the themes of his later novels. Fallada was preoccupied with poverty and unemployment and he carried out detailed research into these topics. His books explore the causes and consequences of poverty and unemployment and share with them a strong vein of anti-communist sentiment.