The Tin Drum

by Gunter Grass

Published 12 March 1963
THE TIN DRUM presents Hitler's rise and fall through the eyes of the dwarfish narrator whose magic powers become symbolic of the dark forces dominating the German nation in the period. Like Thomas Mann's DOCTOR FAUSTUS, Grass's novel explores the dark roots of power and creativity. An early advocate of 'magic realism'. Gunter Grass is the most powerful and celebrated novelist to appear in post-war Germany. His home city of Danzig is a powerful presence in this novel.

The Flounder

by Gunter Grass

Published 1 January 1978

Gunter Grass, says The Times, 'is on his own as an artist', and indeed this extraordinary, provoking and joyously Rabelaisian celebration of life, food and sex is unique.

Lifted from their ancient fairytale, the fisherman and his wife are still living today. During the months of Ilsebill's pregnancy, the fisherman tells her of his adventures through time with the Flounder, constituting a complete reworking of social, political and gastronomic history.


From the Diary of a Snail

by Gunter Grass

Published 19 December 1973

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.


The Rat

by Gunter Grass

Published 22 June 1987

Dog Years

by Gunter Grass

Published 8 November 1965
In an explosive fusion of myth and reality, magic and romance, Dog Years charts forty years of German history, starting with 1917, to expose the madness of a society that bred and nurtured the horrors of the Third Reich before anaesthetising itself with the chaos of disintegration.

Cat and Mouse

by Gunter Grass

Published December 1963
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