Group Portrait with Lady

About “Group Portrait with Lady”

Group Portrait with Lady is a 1971 novel by Heinrich Böll, a Nobel Prize-winning author. The story follows Leni Pfieffer, a woman facing eviction from her apartment in Cologne. The novel is structured as a report based on interviews conducted by an unnamed author with Leni’s friends, family, employers, and others. These accounts create a detailed social portrait of life in Cologne from the 1910s to 1971. The book also reflects Böll’s interest in depicting the Nazi era through the experiences of ordinary people. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)