W. G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgäu, Germany, on May 18, 1944. His novels—The Rings of Saturn, The Emigrants, Vertigo, and Austerlitz—have won a number of international awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Berlin Literature Prize, and the Literatur Nord Prize. He died on December 14, 2001. His posthumous publications include On the Natural History of Destruction and After Nature.