A Companion to the Works of Gunter Grass

The first complete assessment in English of the oeuvre of the Nobel laureate and most prominent postwar German writer, focused on his prose fiction, its literary and historical contexts, his poetry, politics, autobiographies, and artworks.Gunter Grass is known internationally for his multilayered fictions that drew on his mixed German-Polish heritage while engaging with the panoramic sweep of European history. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, his early novels, from The Tin Drum (1959) to The Flounder (1977), were international bestsellers. His books and public interventions continued to attract attention until his death in 2015. Typically, he opposed national euphoria at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 by arguing against German reunification, reflected in his middle-period masterpiece Too far Afield (1995). Particularly controversial given his long-assigned role as the conscience of the German nation was his admission in Peeling the Onion (2006), the first of his late autobiographical works, that as a 17-year-old he had served in the Nazi Waffen-SS.As the first comprehensive assessment in English of the highest-profile German author of his generation, this carefully curated collection of essays by leading and rising international scholars places his literary achievement center stage, while highlighting his visual art, autobiographies, and political activism. Published in the centenary year of Grass's birth, this Companion provides an advanced introduction to his multifarious writings, while moving critical understanding of their significance in new directions. A retrospective of his oeuvre, it also sketches out future directions for research, its contributors proposing new contexts, methods, and angles for contemporary appraisals of his achievements.