bild
Elias Canetti, German-language author of Bulgarian descent, pictured in Darmstadt, Germany, October 1972. He was born on July 25, 1905 in Rustschuk (now Ruse), Bulgaria, into a Jewish family who spoke old Spanish. When Canetti was six, his family moved to Manchester, England. After the sudden death of his father, his mother took the family to Vienna, where he learned German. He eventually chose to write in German and retained a lasting love of German culture. Canetti's best-known works are "Auto-da-Fe" ("Die Blendung", 1935), "Crowds and Power" ("Masse und Macht", 1960) and "The Tongue Set Free" ("Die gerettete Zunge", 1977). In 1981 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Canetti died on August 14, 1994 in Zurich. (KEYSTONE/DPA/Manfred Rehm) === ===