biography
| name: |
Grass, Günter (Wilhelm)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1927– )
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| biography:
| Writer, born in Gdańsk, N Poland (formerly Danzig, Germany). He was educated at Danzig Volksschule and Gymnasium, the Academy of Art, Düsseldorf, and the State Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin. He served in World War 2 and was held as a prisoner-of-war. Die Blechtrommel (1959, The Tin Drum) was the first of the novels that have made him Germany's greatest living novelist, and it caused a furore in Germany because of its depiction of the Nazis. Intellectual and experimental, his books consistently challenge the status quo and question our reading of the past. Important books are Katz und Maus (1961, Cat and Mouse), Hundejahre (1963, Dog Years), Örtlich betäubt (1969, Local Anaesthetic), and Der Butt (1977, The Flounder). Later novels include Kopfgeburten (1980, Headbirths), Ein weites Feld (1995, A Wide Field), and Crabwalk (2003). He worked as a ghost-writer for the leader of the Social Democrats, Willy Brandt, and has published a collection of speeches and essays, ‘Der Bürger und seine Stimme’ (1974, The Citizen and his Vote). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. |
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