Jan Gielkens Books

A collection of one hundred inter-linked stories celebrating the twentieth century, by Germany's most eminent contemporary writer. As the sequence of stories unfolds, a lively and rich picture emerges, an historical portrait of our century in all its grandeur and in all its horror.

Günter Grass has been wrestling with Germany's past for decades now, but no book since The Tin Drum has generated as much excitement as this engrossing account of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff . A German cruise ship turned refugee carrier, it was attacked by a Soviet submarine in January 1945. Some 9,000 people went down in the Baltic Sea, making it the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.Born to an unwed mother on a lifeboat the night of the attack, Paul Pokriefke is a middle-aged journalist trying to piece together the tragic events. While his mother sees her whole existence in terms of that calamitous moment, Paul wishes their life could have been less touched by the past. For his teenage son, who dabbles in the dark, far-right corners of the Internet, the Gustloff embodies the denial of Germany's wartime suffering."Scuttling backward to move forward," Crabwalk is at once a captivating tale of a tragedy at sea and a fearless examination of the ways different generations of Germans now view their past.Winner of the Nobel Prize

A German art historian and a Polish art restorer find adventure and love in the cemetery business. Their vision is to offer plots in Gdansk to those Germans who had been exiled after World War II. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Line drawings by the Author. Translated by Ralph Manheim. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book