__BIOGRAPHY

Michael Andreas Helmut Ende was born on Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a town of Bavaria (Germany), in November 12th 1929. He was the only son of Edgar and Luisä Ende. His father was a surrealist painter whose work was banned by the nazi regime. His early influence would be highly important in his son's future books.

Michael attended school at Waldorf, but quit when he was drafted by the German Army in 1945. He ran away of war and worked as a messenger for Bavarian Free Front, an anti-nazi organization. When war was over, he became interested in theater and managed to enter the Otto Falckenberg Drama School in Munich. He eventually worked as an actor and director and began to write some radio and stage plays.

In 1960 he could finally publish his first novel oriented to children, Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, which gave him enough money to stabilize. The book won the Hans Christian Andersen Award that year and had a great popular acclaim —both TV and radio series on Jim were made—, though some critics would always accuse him of being 'escapist' — writing fantasy in a context where everything in the literary world had to be realistic and deal with post-war issues. These people wouldn't understand the strong social undertones related to the 'real world' that Ende always included in his writing.

In 1964 he married Ingeborg Hoffman. Momo was published in 1972. This novel would have two film adaptations, one in 1986 with real actors and the animated version in 2001. In 1979 Ende finished The Neverending Story, which had such a big success that made him stand on the writers' spotlight for months. Many interviews and awards came and Ende, who was shy and didn't like geting so much attention at all, suffered for both physical and psychological trauma. From then on he tried to avoid interviews and public appearances.

In 1984 The Neverending Story movie was released. Ende was very unpleased with the results and asked his name to be removed from the credits, because he considered the film too different of the original novel. He sued the producers but lost.

Ende's wife died due to lung cancer in 1985. In 1989 he married Mariko Sato, who was Japanese and had previously introduced him to kabuki and no (Japanese theatre). In 1993 he began to show signs of possible stomach cancer and a year after this ended up to be true. He eventually died of this disease in Stuttgart, August 29th 1995, at age 65, to much recognition and sorrow.