Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) is a famous German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (1972). The first publication in Russia of eleven early works of the world famous German writer. This collection includes his early stories, which had not previously been published in Russian. The author talks about the meaninglessness of war, the hardships of life and the spiritual breakdown of people who returned from the front. Böll does not call anyone anywhere, does not preach anything. He only asks, he only seeks. But it is in the way he searches and asks that the constant source of his creative charm (Lev Kopelev).