Erich Kästner

German author, novelist, poet, screenwriter and satirist who is especially known for his children’s books. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1960 for his autobiography Als ich ein kleiner Junge war. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

His children’s books are notable for their humor and respect for the child’s moral seriousness. The most famous of these, Emil und die Detektive (1929; Emil and the Detectives), was several times dramatized and filmed.

His post-World War II works are characterized by a greater emphasis on social philosophy but do not sacrifice their elegance and entertaining qualities.

During the 1920s Kästner became one of the most important intellectual figures in the German capital. He published poems, newspaper columns, articles, and reviews in many of Berlin's important periodicals. Kästner was a regular contributor to different daily newspapers.

Kästner was a pacifist and was opposed to the Nazi regime. The Nazis burnt Kästner's books as "contrary to the German spirit" during the infamous book burnings of 10 May 1933. Kästner witnessed the event in person.

Kästner never married. He had one son. He died of esophageal cancer, aged 75, on 29 July 1974 in Munich.