This selection combines Selected Poems (1966) and New Poems (1968). The German originals face the translations. Translated by Michael Hamburger and Christopher Middleton. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
THE BOOK: 'Funny, macabre, disgusting, blasphemous, pathetic, horrifying, erotic, it is an endless delirium, an outrageous phantasmagoria in which dustfrom Goethe, Hans Andersen, Swift, Rabelais, Joyce, Aristophanes and Rochester dances on the point of a needle in the flame of a candle that was not worth the game.
In this vast novel, packed with incident, Gunter Grass traces the dark labyrinth of the German mentality as it developed during the rise, fall, and aftermath of the Third Reich.
Peeling the Onion is a searingly honest account of Grass' modest upbringing in Danzig, his time as a boy soldier fighting the Russians, and the writing of his masterpiece, The Tin Drum, in Paris. It is a remarkable autobiography and, without question, one of Gunter Grass' finest works. By the Nobel Prize- winning author of The Tin Drum.
Suddenly, in spite of the trials of old age, and with the end in sight, everything seems possible again: love letters, soliloquies, scenes of jealousy, swan songs, social satire, and moments of happiness. Only an ageing artist who had once more cheated death could get to work with such wisdom, defiance and wit. A wealth of touching stories is condensed into artful miniatures. In a striking interplay of poetry, lyric prose and drawings, Grass creates his final, major work of art. A moving farewell gift, a sensual, melancholy summation of a life fully lived.
Probably the most autobiographical of his novels, From the Diary of a Snail balances the agonising history of the persecuted Danzig Jews with an account of Grass's political campaigning with Willie Brandt. Underlying all is the snail, the central symbol that is both model and a parody of social progress, and a mysterious metaphor for political reform. From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of The Tin Drum.
As the Berlin Wall crumbled and the two Germanys became one, Grass was one of a few who spoke out against reunification. In this collection of speeches and debates on the factors destined to reshape Europe, he is caustic, indignant, reflective, and compelling. Translated by Krishna Winston with A. S. Wensinger. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
@lt;DIV@gt;It all begins in the Stone Age, when a talking fish is caught by a fisherman at the very spot where millennia later Grass's home town, Danzig, will arise. Like the fish, the fisherman is immortal, and down through the ages they move together. As Grass blends his ingredients into a powerful brew, he shows himself at the peak of his linguistic inventiveness. Translated by Ralph Manheim. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book@lt;br@gt;@lt;/div@gt;
The setting is Danzig during World War II. The narrator recalls a boyhood scene in which a black cat pounces on his friend Mahlke's "mouse"-his prominent Adam's apple. This incident sets off a wild series of events that ultimately leads to Mahlke's becoming a national hero. Translated by Ralph Manheim. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
In this delightful sequel to Peeling the Onion, G�nter Grass writes in the voices of his eight children as they record memories of their childhoods, of growing up, of their father, who was always at work on a new book, always at the margins of their lives. Memories contradictory, critical, loving, accusatory - they piece together an intimate picture of this most public of men. To say nothing of Marie, Grass's assistant, a family friend of many years, perhaps even a lover, whose snapshots taken with an old-fashioned Agfa box camera provide the author with ideas for his work. But her images offer much more. They reveals a truth beyond the ordinary details of life, depict the future, tell what might have been, grant the wishes in visual form of those photographed. The children speculate on the nature of this magic: was the enchanted camera a source of inspiration for their father? Did it represent the power of art itself? Was it the eye of God? 'With his magical story of Marie's all-seeing camera, he transforms the facts of his headlong but loving life into something far more potent than reportage' Sunday Herald 'A short, often charming book...richly comic' The Times 'Beautifully-written sequel to Peeling the Onion' Daily Telegraph
