Nobel Prize for Catholic

From Soren Fogelberg In Sweden Stockholm
p. HE West German novelist 11 Heinrich Boll, who has been awarded the Nobel Prize, is, although a Catholic, his country's most pointed and persistent critic of the Church. But he says it is "unthinkable that he should be anything but a Catholic."
The Swedish Academy announced that Herr Boll, who is 54, received the award, worth the equivalent of £41,000, for his writing "which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterisation has contributed to a renewal of German literature."
Herr Boll, who has been described as the best post-war writer in both West and East Germany, became the first German to win the award since Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize in 1929. His novels and short stories include "The Clown," "Billiards at Ninethirty," and "Dr. Murke's Collected Silences."
His last novel, Gruppenbild der Dame ("Group Portrait of a Lady") which was published in the autumn of last year, was a success both with critics and readers. Herr Boll, who was born in Cologne, has published some 40 volumes since 1949.