W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, widely acclaimed at its publication in 2001, tells the story of Jacques Austerlitz who, as a small child, was sent to England on a kindertransport in 1939, and who, as an adult fifty years after the war is over, is haunted by images and fleeting memories of his past. He follows a dim trail that ultimately leads to the truth of his parents' death in the Holocaust.

The Tin Drum (1959) is Günter Grass's first and most famous novel. A huge commercial success, The Tin Drum tells the story of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, who, in protest of the Nazi regime, stopped growing at the age of three. The novel is a moving and hilarious view of German history and immediately cast Grass as German's most popular writer.

Missing Persons (1997), a collection of essays by Heinrich Bö...