Author Guide · Prose Fiction & Essays
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In August 1992 a German professor of literature at the University of East Anglia set off to walk the Suffolk coast, from Lowestoft towards Bungay. The walk became The Rings of Saturn, a book that wanders from herring fleets and silkworms to Joseph Conrad and the skull of Sir Thomas Browne. W. G. Sebald, born in Bavaria in 1944, lived in England from 1966 but wrote in German, and his books mix memoir, travel, history and invention, illustrated with uncaptioned photographs. Most of them circle the same subject: what the twentieth century, and the Holocaust above all, did to people who survived it. He died in a car crash near Norwich in December 2001, five weeks after the German edition of Austerlitz appeared. This guide covers his eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1988–2003 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
W. G. Sebald’s best-known books are Austerlitz (2001), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Emigrants (1992), The Rings of Saturn (1995) and Vertigo (1990). He wrote eight key books, all first published in German. Start with Austerlitz: it has the clearest story of any of his books, and it leads straight into the themes of the others.
Where to Start with W. G. Sebald
If you want his defining book
→ Austerlitz (2001) — one man’s search for the parents he lost in 1939.
If you want four lives in one book
→ The Emigrants (1992) — four exiles, told through the narrator’s search for them.
If you want a walk that turns into history
→ The Rings of Saturn (1995) — the Suffolk coast, from Lowestoft towards Bungay.
If you want his non-fiction argument
→ On the Natural History of Destruction (1999) — on the bombing of German cities and the silence after it.
8 W. G. Sebald Books, in Order
After Nature
Published in German as Nach der Natur in 1988, his first literary book is a long poem in three parts: on the Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald, on the naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, who sailed with Vitus Bering to Alaska, and on Sebald’s own childhood in wartime Bavaria. Michael Hamburger’s English translation appeared in 2002.
Vertigo
Schwindel. Gefühle. (1990), his first prose book, in four parts: Stendhal’s life as a young soldier and lover; a narrator’s journeys to Vienna, Venice and Verona; Kafka taking a cure at Riva on Lake Garda in 1913; and the narrator’s return to W., the Alpine village where he grew up. Michael Hulse’s English translation appeared in 1999.
The Emigrants
Die Ausgewanderten (1992) tells four lives: Dr Henry Selwyn, a Lithuanian-Jewish doctor in Norfolk; Paul Bereyter, the narrator’s schoolteacher in Bavaria; his great-uncle Ambros Adelwarth, a butler on Long Island; and Max Ferber, a German-Jewish painter in Manchester whose parents were deported. The German edition won the Berlin Literature Prize; Michael Hulse’s translation of 1996 was Sebald’s first book in English.
The Rings of Saturn
Die Ringe des Saturn (1995) follows the narrator on a walk along the Suffolk coast in August 1992, from Lowestoft towards Bungay. Each place opens into another story: Joseph Conrad, the Congo, the silk trade, the herring fishery, Chateaubriand, the poet Swinburne and the seventeenth-century doctor Thomas Browne. Michael Hulse’s translation appeared in 1998.
A Place in the Country
Logis in einem Landhaus (1998) collects six essays on writers and an artist linked to the Alpine landscape where he grew up: Johann Peter Hebel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Eduard Mörike, Gottfried Keller, Robert Walser and the painter Jan Peter Tripp. It did not appear in English until 2013, translated by his former colleague Jo Catling.
On the Natural History of Destruction
Luftkrieg und Literatur (1999) grew out of lectures he gave in Zurich in 1997. He argues that German writers largely failed to describe the Allied bombing of German cities, and examines the reactions his lectures provoked. The English edition of 2003, translated by Anthea Bell, adds essays on Jean Améry, Alfred Andersch and Peter Weiss.
Austerlitz
Jacques Austerlitz, an architectural historian whom the narrator meets in Antwerp in the 1960s, was brought up by a Welsh minister and his wife and learns only late that he came to Britain from Prague on a Kindertransport in 1939. His search leads to Terezín, where his mother was deported, and to Paris. Anthea Bell’s translation came out in 2001 and also won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2002.
Campo Santo
Published after his death, Campo Santo (2003) opens with several prose pieces from a book on Corsica that he started and set aside, followed by essays written from 1975 onwards, on Kafka, Peter Handke, Günter Grass and Wolfgang Hildesheimer, and the poet Ernst Herbeck. Anthea Bell’s translation appeared in 2005.
In What Order to Read W. G. Sebald
None of his books continues another, so you can start anywhere. Note that English publication came in a different order from German: The Emigrants (1996) was translated first, then The Rings of Saturn (1998) and Vertigo (1999), the book he had written first. Read in German order, the three prose books show his method forming, from the sketches of Vertigo to the four long portraits of The Emigrants.
Austerlitz works well first or last. Read On the Natural History of Destruction once you know the fiction: it states openly the argument about German silence that the novels leave unspoken.
A reading path
1. Austerlitz (2001)
2. The Emigrants (1992)
3. The Rings of Saturn (1995)
4. Vertigo (1990)
5. On the Natural History of Destruction (1999)
Everything Else W. G. Sebald Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poetry
3
3 books · 2001–2008
- 2001For Years Nowshort poems, with images by the artist Tess Jaray
- 2003Unrecounted33 short texts beside Jan Peter Tripp’s portraits of eyes; German Unerzählt
- 2008Across the Land and the Waterselected poems 1964–2001; German Über das Land und das Wasser, English 2011
Literary criticism
1
1 book · 1985
- 1985Silent Catastropheshis essays on Austrian literature, from Die Beschreibung des Unglücks (1985) and Unheimliche Heimat (1991), in English in 2025
The years · 1944–2025
Quick facts about W. G. Sebald
- Known for
- He is known for prose books that blend fiction, memoir, history and travel with uncaptioned photographs to trace how the Second World War and the Holocaust live on in individual lives.
- 1944
- Born in Wertach, Bavaria
- 1970
- Starts teaching at the University of East Anglia
- 1992
- The Emigrants
- 2001
- Austerlitz; dies in December
- 2025
- Silent Catastrophes appears in English
- Born
- 18 May 1944, Wertach, Bavaria; grew up largely in nearby Sonthofen
- Died
- 14 December 2001, near Norwich, aged 57; a heart attack at the wheel, according to the coroner
- Education
- Universities of Freiburg and Fribourg; PhD, University of East Anglia, 1973
- Worked
- University of Manchester, 1966–1969; University of East Anglia from 1970, professor of European literature from 1987
- Founded
- The British Centre for Literary Translation, 1989
- Honours
- Heinrich Böll Prize (1997); National Book Critics Circle Award and Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for Austerlitz
The red mark is 2001: Austerlitz, his last novel, published weeks before his death.
How W. G. Sebald Writes: Walking, Photographs and Other People’s Lives
Sebald called his books “prose fiction” and refused to separate memoir, biography, history and invention. A first-person narrator who resembles Sebald travels, reads and listens, and other people’s stories are reported to him, often at second or third hand, in long sentences with almost no paragraph breaks. In Austerlitz a single sentence runs for several pages.
The books are illustrated with black-and-white photographs, postcards, documents and drawings, without captions. Many are genuine; others have no real connection to the people they seem to show. The cover photograph of Austerlitz comes from a postcard of an unnamed English boy. The effect is to make the reader unsure where the record ends and the fiction begins.
His subject is memory after catastrophe, approached from the side: he rarely describes the camps or the bombing directly, and instead follows survivors, exiles and their descendants decades later. He wrote in German throughout his thirty-five years in England, and worked closely with his translators, Michael Hulse and Anthea Bell above all, on the English versions.
Watch
W. G. Sebald on Bookworm
Sebald talks with Michael Silverblatt on Bookworm, the KCRW radio programme about books and writers.
Frequently asked questions about W. G. Sebald’s books
How many books has W. G. Sebald written?
Twelve literary books are listed on this page: the eight key books, from After Nature (1988) to Campo Santo (2003), and four more in the bibliography, three of them poetry and one a volume of essays on Austrian literature. He also wrote academic studies in German.
What are W. G. Sebald’s books in order?
By first German publication: After Nature (1988), Vertigo (1990), The Emigrants (1992), The Rings of Saturn (1995), A Place in the Country (1998), On the Natural History of Destruction (1999), Austerlitz (2001) and Campo Santo (2003).
Where should I start with W. G. Sebald?
With Austerlitz (2001). It follows one man’s search for his parents, so it has the clearest story of his books. If you prefer shorter pieces, start with The Emigrants, four separate lives in one volume.
What is W. G. Sebald’s most famous book?
Austerlitz (2001). It won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, The Guardian placed it fifth in its 2019 list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, and The New York Times Book Review ranked it eighth in its 2024 list.
Did Sebald write in German or English?
In German, although he lived in England from 1966 until his death. The English translations were made by Michael Hulse, Anthea Bell, Michael Hamburger and Jo Catling, and Sebald worked closely on them. English editions sometimes appeared years after the German: A Place in the Country (1998) was translated only in 2013.
Are Sebald’s books fiction or non-fiction?
Both. He preferred the term “prose fiction”. Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz draw on real people and places but change names, facts and photographs. On the Natural History of Destruction, A Place in the Country and most of Campo Santo are essays.
Did Sebald base his characters on real people?
Yes, and some of them objected. Carole Angier’s biography Speak, Silence (2021) reported that the family of the doctor behind Henry Selwyn in The Emigrants say he was not Jewish, that the painter Frank Auerbach objected to the character of Max Ferber, and that Susi Bechhöfer, who came to Britain on a Kindertransport and was raised by a Welsh minister, felt cheated that Austerlitz drew on her story, published in her memoir Rosa’s Child (1999).
How did W. G. Sebald die?
He died on 14 December 2001, aged 57, when his car crossed the road into an oncoming lorry near Norwich. The coroner found that he had suffered a heart attack and died before the crash. His daughter Anna, who was in the car, survived.
Has W. G. Sebald’s work been adapted?
Grant Gee’s documentary Patience (After Sebald) (2011) follows the walk of The Rings of Saturn through Suffolk. In Wertach, his birthplace, an 11 km walking route, the Sebaldweg, opened in 2005, with passages from Vertigo along the way.
Did W. G. Sebald win the Nobel Prize?
No. He was often named as a possible winner before his death in 2001. His prizes include the Heinrich Böll Prize (1997) and, for Austerlitz, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
Footnotes
- W. G. Sebald — Wikipedia
- Austerlitz (novel) — Wikipedia
- The Emigrants (Sebald novel) — Wikipedia
- W. G. Sebald — Britannica
- W. G. Sebald’s borrowed truths and barefaced lies — The Spectator, 2021
- Silent Catastrophes — Kirkus Reviews, 2025
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work.”
— W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn (1995), the opening sentence, translated by Michael Hulse
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