Erich Maria Remarque (born June 22, 1898,Osnabrück, Ger.—died Sept. 25, 1970,Locarno, Switz.) was a novelist who is chiefly remembered as the author ofIm Westen nichts Neues (1929;All Quiet on the Western Front), which became perhaps the best-known and most representativenovel dealing withWorld War I.

Remarque was drafted into the German army at the age of 18 and was wounded several times. After the war he worked as a racing-car driver and as a sportswriter while working onAll Quiet on the Western Front. The novel’s events are those in the daily routine of soldiers who seem to have no past or future apart from their life in the trenches. Its title, the language of routine communiqués, is typical of its cool, terse style, which records the daily horrors of war inlaconic understatement. Its casual amorality was in shocking contrast to patrioticrhetoric. The book was an immediate international success, as was the American film made from it in 1930. It was followed by a sequel,Der Weg zurück (1931;The Road Back), dealing with the collapse ofGermany in 1918. Remarque wrote several other novels, most of them dealing with victims of the political upheavals of Europe during World Wars I and II. Some had popular success and were filmed (e.g.,Arc de Triomphe, 1946), but none achieved the criticalprestige of his first book.

Remarque left Germany forSwitzerland in 1932. His books were banned by the Nazis in 1933. In 1939 he went to theUnited States, where he was naturalized in 1947. AfterWorld War II he settled in Porto Ronco, Switz., onLake Maggiore, where he lived with his second wife, the American actressPaulette Goddard, until his death.