Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed as the greatest German novel written since the end of World War II, The Tin Drum is the autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and who, as the novel begins, is being held in a mental institution. Willfully stunting his growth at three feet for many years, wielding his tin drum and piercing scream as anarchistic weapons, he provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition in the modern world.
Review
"Grass works with a range of theatrical inventiveness that shades from Goethe at his most Mephistophelean to Ionesco at his most perverse. The Tin Drum is a formidable, if formidably uneven, novel. It is also a prime example of The Novel of the Absurd." New York Times
About the Author
Günter Grass was born in 1927 in Danzig. Active as an artist, poet, and playwright, he has lived in Paris and traveled widely in Europe. At present he lives in Berlin with his wife and twin sons. The Tin Drum, the author's first novel, has been translated into all major European languages. A film version of the book received an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1980. His other works include Cat and Mouse, The Flounder, Headbirths, and The Rat. In 1999, Günter Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.