Heinrich Heine

Born in Düsseldorf in 1797, Heinrich Heine became one of the most influential German writers of the 19th century. He first won wide attention with Book of Songs, a collection whose musical, deceptively simple poems helped make him famous far beyond literary circles.

Heine began within the world of Romantic poetry, but he also questioned and mocked it with unusual wit. Alongside his poems, he wrote travel sketches, cultural criticism, and political prose that gave his work a modern, restless energy.

He spent much of his later life in Paris, where he lived as an exile and wrote about politics, society, and the tensions between Germany and France. He died there in 1856, leaving behind work that is elegant, ironic, and deeply alive to both beauty and injustice.