From the first page of any book by Sebald, one is in the hands of a master Daily Telegraph Sparking off a wide-ranging debate in the German press when it was published in 1999, ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION concerns the strange silence surrounding the destruction of German cities through allied bombing in post-war German writing. Now translated into English by Anthea Bell, it confirms Sebald's reputation as one of the most original and stimulating of European writers.