Remarque served on the Western Front at 18 and drew on that experience to write All Quiet on the Western Front, which sold 2.5 million copies in 18 months. The Nazis burned it in 1933 and stripped him of German citizenship. He spent the rest of his life in American exile. His novel remains the definitive account of how modern warfare destroys the generation it conscripts.

• Nationality: DE
• Roles: writer