Günter Grass

German author, visual artist and sculptor

Günter Grass

Grass in 2006

Born| Günter Wilhelm Graß
(1927-10-16)16 October 1927
Danzig-Langfuhr, Free City of Danzig
Died| 13 April 2015(2015-04-13) (aged 87)
Lübeck, Germany
Occupation|

* Novelist
* poet
* playwright
* sculptor
* graphic designer

Language| German
Period| 1956–2013
Literary movement| Vergangenheitsbewältigung
Notable works|

* The Tin Drum (1959)
* Cat and Mouse (1961)
* Dog Years (1963)
* Crabwalk (2002)

Notable awards|

* Georg Büchner Prize
1965

* Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
1993

* Nobel Prize in Literature
1999

* Prince of Asturias Award for Literature
1999

Spouse|

Anna Margareta Schwarz

(m. 1954; div. 1978)​

Ute Grunert

(m. 1979)​

Signature

Günter Wilhelm Grass (German: [ˈɡʏntɐ ˈɡʁas] ⓘ;[1][2] 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.[3][4][5][6]

He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). At age 17, he was drafted into the military and served from late 1944 in the Waffen-SS. He was taken as a prisoner of war by US forces at the end of the war in May 1945. He was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood.

Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

The Tin Drum was adapted as a film of the same name, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1999, the Swedish Academy awarded Grass the Nobel Prize in Literature, praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".[7]

## Early life[edit]

Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig on 16 October 1927, to Wilhelm Grass (1899–1979), a Lutheran Protestant of German origin, and Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898–1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin.[8][9] He identified as Kashubian.[10][11][12] Grass was raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy when he was a child.[13] His parents had a grocery store with an attached apartment in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He had a younger sister, Waltraud, born in 1930.[14]

Grass's childhood home in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) in 2010

Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. In 1943, at age 16, he became a Luftwaffenhelfer (Air Force "helper"). Soon thereafter, he was conscripted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service). In November 1944, shortly after his 17th birthday, Grass volunteered for submarine service with Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine, "to get out of the confinement felt as a teenager in his parents' house", which he considered stuffy Catholic lower middle-class.[15][16]

After the Navy refused him, he was called up for the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg in late 1944.[17][18] Grass did not reveal until 2006 that he was drafted into the Waffen-SS at that time.[19] His unit functioned as a regular Panzer Division, and he served with them from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945. He was captured in Marienbad (now Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic) and sent to a US prisoner-of-war camp in Bad Aibling, Bavaria.[20]

From 1946 to 1947, Grass worked in a mine and received training in stonemasonry. He studied sculpture and graphics at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He also was a co-founder of Group 47, organized by Hans Werner Richter. Grass worked as a writer, graphic designer, and sculptor, traveling frequently.

In 1953 he moved to West Berlin and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 1960, he lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein.[21] In 1961 he publicly objected to the erection of the Berlin Wall.

From 1983 to 1986, he held the presidency of the Academy of Arts, Berlin.[20]

## Personal life[edit]

In 1954 Grass married Anna Margareta Schwarz, a Swiss dancer, which ended in divorce in 1978. He and Schwarz had four children: Franz (born 1957), Raoul (1957), Laura (1961), and Bruno (1965). They separated in 1972, and he began a relationship with Veronika Schröter, with whom he had a daughter, Helene (1974). He also had a daughter, Nele (1979), with Ingrid Kruger.

In 1979 he married Ute Grunert, an organist, to whom he was married up until his death.[20] He had two stepsons from his second marriage, Malte and Hans. He had 18 grandchildren at his death.[20][22]

Grass was a fan of Bundesliga Club SC Freiburg.[23]

## Major works[edit]

### Danzig Trilogy[edit]

Main article: Danzig Trilogy

Danzig Krantor waterfront (postcard, c. 1900)

Grass's best-known work is The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel), published in 1959 (and adapted as a film of the same name by director Volker Schlöndorff in 1979). It was followed in 1961 by Cat and Mouse (Katz und Maus), a novella, and in 1963 by the novel Dog Years (Hundejahre).

The books are collectively called the Danzig Trilogy and focus on the rise of Nazism and how World War II affected Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). It had been separated from Germany after World War I and was designated as the Free City of Danzig (Freie Stadt Danzig).[24]

Dog Years (1965) is considered a sequel of sorts to The Tin Drum, as it features some of the same characters.[25] It portrays the area's mixed ethnicities and complex historical background in lyrical prose that is highly evocative.[26]

The Tin Drum established Grass as one of the leading authors of Germany. It set a high bar of comparison for all of his subsequent works, which critics often compared unfavorably to this early work.[27] In West Germany of the late 1950s and early '60s, the book was controversial. The city of Bremen revoked a prize it bestowed on Grass because of what its leaders considered the "immorality" of his debut novel. [20] When Grass received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1999, the Nobel Committee stated that the publication of The Tin Drum "was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction".[28]

### The Flounder[edit]

The 1977 novel The Flounder (Der Butt) is based on the folktale of "The Fisherman and His Wife", and deals with the struggle between the sexes. It has been read as an anti-feminist novel. In the novel the magical flounder of the folk tale represents male triumphalism and the patriarchy. It is caught by a group of 1970s feminists, who put it on trial. The book interrogates male-female relations from the past and the present through the relationship between the narrator and his wife who, like the wife in the folk tale, insatiably craves more.[29] Although the book could be read as a defense of women and a denunciation of male chauvinism, it was largely harshly critiqued and rejected by feminists. They rejected its portrayal of violence, sexualization and objectification, and what they perceived as male narcissism and gender essentialism.[30]

### My Century and Crabwalk[edit]

In My Century (Mein Jahrhundert, 1999) Grass covered many of the 20th-century's brutal historic events, conveyed in short pieces of a few pages by year, forming a mosaic of expression.

In 2002, Grass returned to the forefront of world literature with Crabwalk (Im Krebsgang). This novella, one of whose main characters first appeared in Cat and Mouse, was Grass's most successful work in decades. It dealt with the events of a refugee ship, full of thousands of Germans, being sunk by a Soviet Russian submarine, killing most on board. It was one of a number of works since the late 20th century that have explored the victimization of Germans in World War II.[31]

### Memoir trilogy[edit]

In 2006, Grass published the first volume in a trilogy of autobiographic memoirs. Titled Peeling the Onion (Beim Häuten der Zwiebel), it dealt with his childhood, war years, early efforts as a sculptor and poet, and finally his literary success with the publication of The Tin Drum. In a pre-publication interview, Grass revealed for the first time that he had been a member of the Waffen-SS, and not only served as a Flakhelfer (anti-aircraft assistant), as he had long claimed. On being asked about his decision to make a public confession, he answered: "It was a weight on me, my silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote the book. It had to come out in the end."[32]

In response to the interview and the book, many critics accused him of hypocrisy for having hidden this part of his past, while simultaneously being a strong voice for ethics and morality in the public debate.[32] The book was praised for its depictions of the German postwar generation, and the social and moral development of a nation burdened simultaneously by destruction and a deep sense of guilt.[33] Throughout the memoir, Grass plays with the frailty of memory, for which the layers of the onion are a metaphor. Grass second-guesses his own memories, throws his own autobiographical statements into doubt, and questions whether the person inhabiting his past was really him. This struggle with memory comes to represent the struggle of the German people during the same period with Germany's Nazi past.[34]

He published the second volume of the trilogy, The Box (German: Die Box) in 2008; and the third, Grimms Wörter (Grimm's Words), the title referring to the Brothers Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary), in 2010.

## Main themes and literary style[edit]

Grass's work is centered on World War II and its effects on Germany and the German people. He critiques the forms of ideological reasoning that undergirded the Nazi regime. He uses the location of the city of Danzig/Gdańsk and its ambiguous historical status between Germany and Poland to stand as a symbol of the ambiguity between and among ethnic groups. Grass's ancestry includes both German and Slavic family members, some of whom fought on opposite sides of the war. His works also show a sustained concern for the marginal and marginalized subjects, such as Oskar Matzerath, the dwarf in The Tin Drum, whose body was considered an aberration unworthy of life in the Nazi ideology, or the Roma and Sinti people deemed impure and unworthy by the Nazis and subjected to eugenics and genocide, as were the Jews.[35][36]

Grass's literary style combines elements of magic realism with a penchant for questioning. He complicates questions of authorship by intermingling realistic autobiographical elements with unreliable narrators and fantastic events or happenings that create irony or satirize events to form social critiques.[37][38]

## Reception by critics and colleagues[edit]

Grass's work has tended to divide the critics into those who have considered his experiments and style to be sublime and those who have found it to be tied down by his political posturing. American critics, such as John Updike, have found the mixture of politics and social critique in his works to diminish its artistic qualities.[39] In his various critiques of Grass's works, Updike wrote that Grass had been consumed by his "strenuous career as celebrity-author-artist-Socialist" and said about one of his later novels that "he can't be bothered to write a novel; he just sends dispatches ... from the front lines of his engagement". Even if frequently critical of Grass, Updike considered him to be "one of the very, very few authors whose next novel one has no intention of missing".[40]

Grass's literary style has been widely influential. John Irving called Grass "simply the most original and versatile writer alive". According to Mews, critics have noted parallels between Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) and The Tin Drum.[41] Similarly, Salman Rushdie has acknowledged a debt to Grass's work, particularly The Tin Drum; in addition, Mews has said parallels to Grass's work have been pointed out in Rushdie's own oeuvre.[42]

## Social and political activism[edit]

Grass in 1986

Grass was for several decades a supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and its policies. He took part in German and international political debate on several occasions. During Willy Brandt's chancellorship, Grass was an active supporter. Grass criticized left-wing radicals and instead argued in favor of the "snail's pace", as he put it, of democratic reform (Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke, literally "from the diary of a snail"). Books containing his speeches and essays have been published throughout his literary career.[20]

In the 1980s, Grass became active in the peace movement and visited Calcutta for six months.[20] A diary with drawings was published as Zunge zeigen, an allusion to Kali's tongue.

During the events leading up to the reunification of Germany in 1989–90, Grass argued for the continued separation of the two German states. He asserted that a unified Germany would be likely to resume its role as belligerent nation-state. This argument estranged many Germans, who came to see him as too much of a moralizing figure.[32]

In 2001, Grass proposed the creation of a German-Polish museum for art lost to other countries during the War. The Hague Convention of 1907 requires the return of art that had been evacuated, stolen or seized. Some countries refused to repatriate some of the looted art.[43][44]

On 4 April 2012, Grass's poem "What Must Be Said" (Was gesagt werden muss) was published in several European newspapers. Grass expressed his concern about the hypocrisy of German military support (the delivery of a submarine) of Israel, which might use such equipment to launch nuclear warheads against Iran, which "could wipe out the Iranian people". And he hoped that many would demand "that the governments of both Iran and Israel allow an international authority free and open inspection of the nuclear potential and capability of both." In response, Israel declared him persona non grata in that country.[45][46][47]

According to Avi Primor, president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, Grass was the only important German cultural figure who had refused to meet with him when he served as Israeli ambassador to Germany. Primor noted: "One explanation for [Grass']s strange behavior might be found in the fact that Grass (who despite his poem is probably not the bitter enemy of Israel that one would imagine) had certain personal difficulties with Israel that were not necessarily of his own making." Primor said that during Grass's earlier visit to Israel, he

> "was confronted with the anger of an Israeli public that booed him in successive public appearances. To be sure, the Israeli protestors were not targeting Grass personally and their anger had nothing at all to do with his literature. It was the German effort to establish cultural relations with Israel to which they objected. Grass, however, did not see it that way and may well have felt personally slighted."[48]

Grass supported the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organization that campaigns for democratic reform of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.[49]

On 26 April 2012, Grass wrote a poem criticizing European policy in the treatment of Greece in the European debt crisis. In "Europe's Disgrace", Grass accuses Europe of condemning Greece to poverty, a country "whose mind conceived Europe".[50][51]

Just a few days before he died, Grass completed his last book, Vonne Endlichkait. The title is in East Prussian dialect, the native dialect of Grass, and means "About Finitude". According to his publisher Gerhard Steidl, the book was "a literary experiment", combining short prose texts, poems, and pencil drawings by the writer.[52] The book was published in August 2015.

## Awards and honours[edit]

Grass with the West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, 1972

Grass received dozens of international awards; in 1999, he was awarded the highest literary honour: the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".[7] His literature is commonly categorized as part of the German artistic movement known as Vergangenheitsbewältigung, roughly translated as "coming to terms with the past."

In 1965, Grass received the Georg Büchner Prize;[53] in 1993 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature[54] In 1995, he received the Hermann Kesten Prize.

Representatives of the city of Bremen joined to establish the Günter Grass Foundation with the aim of establishing a centralized collection of his numerous works, especially his many personal readings, videos and films. The Günter Grass House in Lübeck houses exhibitions of his drawings and sculptures, and an archive and a library.[55]

In 1992, he received the Hidalgo Prize, awarded by the National Association of Spain "Presencia Gitana", in recognition of his defense of the Romani People.[56]

In 2012, Grass received the European of the Year award from the European Movement Denmark (Europabevægelsen), honoring his political debates in European affairs.[57]

## Waffen-SS revelations[edit]

Grass' prisoner of war record, indicating Waffen-SS membership

In August 2006, in an interview about his forthcoming book, Peeling the Onion, Grass said that he had been a member of the Waffen-SS in World War II.[19] Before that, he was thought to have been a typical member of the "Flakhelfer generation", one of those too young to see much fighting or to be involved with the Nazi regime beyond its youth organizations.[58] On 15 August 2006, Spiegel Online published three 1946 documents from US forces verifying Grass's Waffen-SS membership.[59]

After an unsuccessful attempt to volunteer for the U-boat fleet in 1942, at age 15, Grass had been conscripted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labor Service). He was called up for the Waffen-SS in 1944. Grass was trained as a tank gunner and fought with the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg until its surrender to US forces at Marienbad.[60][61]

In 2007, Grass published an account of his wartime experience in The New Yorker, including an attempt to "string together the circumstances that probably triggered and nourished [his] decision to enlist."[61] To the BBC, Grass said in 2006: "It happened as it did to many of my age. We were in the labour service and all at once, a year later, the call-up notice lay on the table. And only when I got to Dresden did I learn it was the Waffen-SS."[62]

As Grass was for many decades an outspoken left-leaning critic of Germany's failure to deal with its Nazi past, his statement caused a great stir in the press. Rolf Hochhuth said it was "disgusting" that this same "politically correct" Grass had publicly criticized Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan's visit to a military cemetery at Bitburg in 1985, because it contained graves of Waffen-SS soldiers.[32] In the same vein, historian Michael Wolffsohn accused Grass of hypocrisy in not earlier disclosing his SS membership.[63] Joachim Fest, a biographer of Adolf Hitler, remarked on Grass's disclosure:

> "After 60 years, this confession comes a bit too late. I can't understand how someone who for decades set himself up as a moral authority, a rather smug one, could pull this off."[64]

Others defended Grass, saying his involuntary Waffen-SS service came very early in his life, resulting from his being drafted shortly after his seventeenth birthday. They noted he had always—after the war was lost—been publicly critical of Germany's Nazi past. For example, novelist John Irving criticized those who would dismiss the achievements of a lifetime because of a mistake made as a teenager.[65]

Grass's biographer Michael Jürgs [de] described the controversy as resulting in "the end of a moral institution".[66] Lech Wałęsa initially criticized Grass for keeping silent about his Waffen-SS membership for 60 years. He later withdrew his criticism after reading Grass's letter to the mayor of Gdańsk, saying that Grass "set the good example for the others."[67] On 14 August 2006, the ruling party of Poland, Law and Justice, called on Grass to relinquish his honorary citizenship of Gdańsk. Jacek Kurski, a Law and Justice politician, said, "It is unacceptable for a city where the first blood was shed, where World War II began, to have a Waffen-SS member as an honorary citizen."[68] But, according to a 2010 poll[69][70] ordered by city's authorities, the vast majority of Gdańsk citizens did not support Kurski's position. The mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, said that he opposed submitting the affair to the municipal council because it was not for the council to judge history.[71]

## Death[edit]

Grass's grave in Behlendorf

An avid pipe smoker for most of his adult life, Grass died at the age of 87 of a lung infection on 13 April 2015 in a Lübeck hospital.[72][73][74] He was buried in a private family observance on 29 April in Behlendorf, 15 miles south of Lübeck, where he had lived since 1995.

American novelist John Irving delivered the main eulogy at a memorial service for Grass on 10 May in the Theater Lübeck. Among those who attended were German President Joachim Gauck, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, federal Commissioner for Culture Monika Grütters, film director Volker Schlöndorff, and Paweł Adamowicz, mayor of Gdańsk.[75][76] Grütters, in remarks to mourners, noted that, through his work, Grass championed the independence of artists and of art itself.[77] Adamowicz said Grass had "bridged the chasm between Germany and Poland", and praised the novelist's "unwillingness to compromise".[78]

## Bibliography[edit]

### Poetry[edit]

* Die Vorzüge der Windhühner (poems, 1956); Steidl, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86521-569-7
* Gleisdreieck (poems, 1960)
* Ausgefragt (poems, 1967)
* Letzte Tänze (poems, 2003)
* Dummer August (poems, 2007)

### Plays[edit]

* Die bösen Köche. Ein Drama (play, 1956) ISSN 0722-8511 translated as The Wicked Cooks in Four Plays (1967)
* Hochwasser. Ein Stück in zwei Akten (play, 1957) The Flood
* Onkel, Onkel. Ein Spiel in vier Akten (play, 1958) Mister, Mister
* Die Plebejer proben den Aufstand (play, 1966) trans. The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising (1966)
* Davor (play, 1970) trans. Max (1972) on a plot from Local Anaesthetic

### Novel Series[edit]

Danzig

1. Die Blechtrommel (novel, 1959) trans. The Tin Drum (1959) ISBN 978-0-679-72575-6.
2. Katz und Maus (novella, 1961) trans. Cat and Mouse (1963) ISBN 978-0-15-615551-9
3. Hundejahre (novel, 1963) trans. Dog Years (1965) ISBN 978-0-7493-9450-9
4. Im Krebsgang (novel, 2002) trans. Crabwalk (2002) ISBN 978-0-15-602970-4

### Novels and short stories[edit]

* Örtlich betäubt (novel, 1969) trans. Local Anaesthetic (1970) ISBN 978-0-449-24257-5
* Der Butt (novel, 1977) trans. The Flounder (1978) ISBN 978-0-15-631935-5
* Das Treffen in Telgte (novel, 1979) trans. The Meeting at Telgte (1981)
* Kopfgeburten oder Die Deutschen sterben aus (novel, 1980) trans. Headbirths, or, the Germans are Dying Out (1982)
* Die Rättin (novel, 1986) trans. The Rat (1987) ISBN 978-0-15-675830-7
* Ein weites Feld [de] (novel, 1995) trans. Too Far Afield (2000) ISBN 978-0-15-601416-8
* Mein Jahrhundert (short story collection, 1999) trans. My Century (1999) ISBN 978-0-15-601141-9
* Die Artur-Knoff-Geschichten. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-95829-292-5 (untranslated)
* Figurenstehen (2022). trans. The Living Statue: A Legend (2024)

### Non-Fiction[edit]

* Über das Selbstverständliche. Reden – Aufsätze – Offene Briefe – Kommentare (speeches, essays, 1968) trans. Speak out! Speeches, Open Letters, Commentaries (1969) with 3 additional pieces
* Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke [de] (political reportage, 1972) trans. From the Diary of a Snail (1973) ISBN 978-0-7493-9455-4
* Der Bürger und seine Stimme. Reden Aufsätze Kommentare (speeches, essays, 1974)
* Denkzettel. Politische Reden und Aufsätze 1965–1976 (political essays and speeches, 1978)
* Widerstand lernen. Politische Gegenreden 1980–1983 (political speeches, 1984)
* Zunge zeigen. Ein Tagebuch in Zeichnungen (political diary, 1988) trans. Show Your Tongue (1989)
* Unkenrufe (novel, 1992) trans. The Call of the Toad (1992) ISBN 978-0-15-615340-9
* Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (memoir, 2006) trans. Peeling the Onion (2007) ISBN 978-0-15-603534-7 – first volume of memoir
* Die Box (memoir, 2008) trans. The Box (2010) ISBN 978-0-09-953975-9 – second volume of memoir
* Unterwegs von Deutschland nach Deutschland. Tagebuch 1990. (political diary, 2009) trans. From Germany to Germany: Diary 1990 (2012) ISBN 978-0-547-36460-5
* Grimms Wörter (memoir, 2010) Third volume of memoir.[79]
* Vonne Endlichkait (collection of prose, poetry, and drawings, 2015) ISBN 978-3-95829-042-6

Collections in English translation

* Four Plays (1967) including Ten Minutes to Buffalo
* In the Egg and Other Poems (1977)
* Two States One Nation? (1990)[79]
* Of All That Ends (poetry and prose) (6 December 2016) ISBN 978-0-544-78538-0

## Reviews[edit]

* Murdoch, Brian (1982), Sisyphean Labours, which includes a review of Headbirths, or, The Germans are Dying Out, in Cencrastus No. 9, Summer 1982, p. 46, ISSN 0264-0856

## See also[edit]

* List of Nobel laureates in Literature

## References[edit]

1. ^ Woods, Tim (2008). "Grass, Günter". Who's Who of Twentieth Century Novelists. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-70990-8.
2. ^ "Zunge heraus". Der Spiegel. 4 September 1963. "(...) wurde Günter Wilhelm Graß am 16. Oktober 1927 geboren."
3. ^ Kulish, Nicholas; Bronner, Ethan (8 April 2012). "Gunter Grass tries to hose down row over Israel". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 10 April 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2012. "Gunter Grass, Germany's most famous living writer, has tried to quell the growing controversy..."
4. ^ "Outrage in Germany". Der Spiegel. 4 April 2012. Retrieved 4 April 2012. "Günter Grass, Germany's most famous living author and the 1999 recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature..."
5. ^ "Yishai: Günter Grass not welcome in Israel". The Jerusalem Post. 4 April 2012. Retrieved 4 April 2012. "Germany's most famous living writer, the Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass..."
6. ^ Harding, Luke; Sherwood, Harriet (8 April 2012). "Outcry as Gunter Grass poem strongly criticises Israel". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Retrieved 8 April 2012. "During his long literary career, Gunter Grass has been many things. Author, playwright, sculptor and, unquestionably, Germany's most famous living writer. There is the 1999 Nobel Prize and Mr. Grass's broader post-war role as the country's moral conscience..."
7. ^ a b "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1999". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 8 October 2009.
8. ^ Garland, The Oxford Companion to German Literature, p. 302.
9. ^ "The Literary Encyclopedia", Günter Grass (b. 1927). Retrieved on 16 August 2006.
10. ^ "Günter Grass nie żyje. Noblista miał 87 lat". Gazeta Wyborcza. 13 April 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2014. "Pytany o tożsamość narodową, mówił, że jest Kaszubą. (Asking about his ethnicity, he always said that he's Kashubian)"
11. ^ "Porträt: Der unbequeme Nationaldichter". Focus. 13 April 2015. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2014. "Aber wenige haben auch soviel einstecken müssen wie der Kaschube aus Danzig. But, just few people had to take flak like the mustachioed Kashubian from Danzig" (now Gdańsk, Poland)
12. ^ Klšppel, Klaus; Matthei, Olaf (2011). "Polnische Ostseeküste, Danzig, Masuren". Klaus Klöppel, Olaf Matthei. ISBN 978-3-8297-1258-3. "Er bezeichnet sich selbst gerne als Kaschube"
13. ^ "Wer ist Günter Grass?". Der Tagesspiegel. 14 August 2006.
14. ^ Mayer, Claudia (2002). Günter Grass. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. p. 16.
15. ^ "Katholischen Mief"."Und Grass wundert sich: Die öffentliche Selbstrechtfertigung des großen Schriftstellers ist so unnötig wie ärgerlich". Die Zeit. 2006.
16. ^ "Nobel prize winner Grass admits serving in SS". Reuters. 11 August 2006. Archived from the original on 25 August 2006. Retrieved 11 August 2006.
17. ^ "Autor Günter Grass: "Ich war Mitglied der Waffen-SS"". Der Spiegel. 11 August 2006. Retrieved 11 August 2006.
18. ^ "Günter Grass was in the Waffen SS" – Survey of reactions to disclosure of time in the Waffen-SS from the German and international press
19. ^ a b "Günter Grass im Interview: 'Warum ich nach sechzig Jahren mein Schweigen breche'". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Archived from the original on 8 August 2009. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
20. ^ a b c d e f g Taberner, S., ed. (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Günter Grass. Cambridge University Presses. pp. xiv–xviii.
21. ^ Hammelehle, Sebastian (13 April 2015). "After many years spent living in Berlin's Friedenau district and a sojourn in the Algarve, Portugal, Grass settled in Behlendorf in Schleswig-Holstein". Der Spiegel. Hamburg. Retrieved 4 May 2015.
22. ^ Donahue, Patrick (13 April 2005). "Guenter Grass, German Writer Who Took On Nazism, Dies at 87". Bloomberg. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
23. ^ "Nobelpreisträger drückt dem SC Freiburg die Daumen". RP Online. 20 February 2000. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
24. ^ International Law Reports (1948) by Elihu Lauterpacht, p. 207
25. ^ The Thomas Mann Handbook (2013) by Emily Smith, page 168
26. ^ "Author of Tin Drum, Günter Grass died". DC Books. Archived from the original on 28 January 2016. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
27. ^ Mews 2008, passim.
28. ^ Mews 2008, p. 1.
29. ^ O'Neill, Patrick (2009). "The Exploratory Fiction of Günter Grass". In Taberner, S. (Ed.). (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Günter Grass. Cambridge University Press.
30. ^ Finch, Helen (2009). "Günter Grass and Gender". In Taberner, S. (Ed.). (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Günter Grass. Cambridge University Press.
31. ^ Krimmer, E. (2008). "'Ein Volk von Opfern?' Germans as Victims in Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel and Im Krebsgang". Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies. 44 (2). University of Toronto Press.: 272–290.
32. ^ a b c d Stephen Kinzer (13 April 2015). "Günter Grass, German Novelist and Social Critic, Dies at 87". The New York Times.
33. ^ Izvor Moralic (1 October 2006). "Book Review: Günter Grass' Peeling the Onion – Günter Grass articulates his life, eloquently describing the troubles of the post-war generation and the desperate attempt to rebuild a life out of ruins while coming to terms with one's own guilt". Viennareview.net. Archived from the original on 28 January 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
34. ^ Tim Gardan (23 June 2007). Confessions of a super Grass. "Peeled, it renews itself; chopped, it brings tears; only during peeling does it speak the truth." `{{cite book}}`: `|work=` ignored (help)
35. ^ Arnds, P. O. (2004). Representation, subversion, and eugenics in Günter Grass's The Tin Drum. Camden House.
36. ^ Taberner, S. (Ed.)., ed. (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Günter Grass. Cambridge University Press.
37. ^ Braun, R. (2008). Constructing Authorship in the Work of Günter Grass. Oxford University Press.
38. ^ Arnds, P. O. (2009). "Günter Grass and Magical Realism". In Taberner, S. (Ed.). (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Günter Grass. Cambridge University Press.
39. ^ Mews 2008, p. [page needed].
40. ^ Mews 2008, pp. 107, 146, 195.
41. ^ Mews 2008, p. 53.
42. ^ Mews 2008, p. 55.
43. ^ "Rückgabe von Beutekunst: Die letzten deutschen Kriegsgefangenen". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 26 October 2010. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
44. ^ "Polen stellt sich stur", Der Spiegel, 8 August 2007 (in German)
45. ^ Bar-Zohar, Ophir; Ravid, Barak (8 April 2012). "Interior Minister declares Gunter Grass persona non grata in Israel". Haaretz. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
46. ^ Günter Grass (5 April 2012). "What Must Be Said". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
47. ^ Weinthal, Benjamin (3 January 2013). "Benjamin Weinthal: Berlin politicians split over Grass travel ban". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
48. ^ Avi Primor, "Peeling Günter Grass' Israeli Onion", Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2012), p. 103 (PDF) Archived 25 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine
49. ^ "Overview". Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly. Retrieved 26 September 2017.
50. ^ "Newsticker". Süddeutsche Zeitung.
51. ^ "Gunter Grass stands by poem about Greece and Europe". Ekathimerini. 27 May 2012. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
52. ^ (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. "Günter Grass leaves a last farewell book | Books | DW.COM | 26 August 2015". DW.COM. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
53. ^ "Günter Grass". Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
54. ^ "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
55. ^ "Gunter Grass House Lubeck". Archived from the original on 16 April 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
56. ^ "Hidalgo Prize awards" (PDF). Presencia Gitana.
57. ^ "Gunter Grass bliver årets Europæer". Jyllandsposten.
58. ^ "Ich war Mitglied der Waffen-SS". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). 11 August 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
59. ^ Wiegrefe, Klaus (15 August 2006). "Grass räumte als Kriegsgefangener Waffen-SS-Mitgliedschaft ein". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
60. ^ "Noble laureate Günter Grass dead at 87". New York Post. 13 April 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
61. ^ a b Grass, Günter (4 June 2007). "How I Spent the War: A recruit in the Waffen S.S." The New Yorker. Retrieved 24 May 2007.
62. ^ "Guenter Grass served in Waffen SS". BBC News. 11 August 2006. Retrieved 11 August 2006.
63. ^ "Nobel Prize Winner Grass Under Fire for Belated SS Confession". Deutsche Welle. 14 August 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
64. ^ "Grass admits serving in Waffen SS". Reuters. 13 August 2006. Retrieved 13 August 2006.
65. ^ John Irving (19 August 2006). "Günter Grass is my hero, as a writer and a moral compass". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 August 2006.
66. ^ "Echo auf Grass' SS-Vergangenheit: "Ende einer moralischen Instanz"". Der Spiegel. 12 August 2006. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
67. ^ "SS-Vergangenheit: Walesa macht Grass Ehrenbürgerwürde streitig". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
68. ^ "Kurski: Grass nie rozumie, czym zranił Polaków" (in Polish). Wiadomości. 17 August 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
69. ^ "Kraj – Gazeta.pl". Serwisy.gazeta.pl. Archived from the original on 9 October 2008. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
70. ^ http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/4/3561/m3561294.jpg [bare URL image file]
71. ^ Rakowiec, Małgorzata (14 August 2006). "Grass asked to give up Polish title". Edinburgh. Reuters. Retrieved 14 August 2006.[dead link]
72. ^ "Renowned German author Günter Grass dies, aged 87". DW.de. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
73. ^ German author Guenter Grass dies, BBC News, 13 April 2015.
74. ^ Richard Lea (13 April 2015). "Günter Grass, Nobel-winning German novelist, dies aged 87". The Guardian.
75. ^ "Abschied von Günter Grass: 'Der König der Spielzeughändler' ", Der Spiegel, 10 May 2015 (in German)
76. ^ "Trauerfeier für Günter Grass: Manchmal liebte er uns stärker als wir selbst" by Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 May 2015 (in German)
77. ^ "Bewegende Gedenkfeier für Günter Grass". Lübecker Nachrichten. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
78. ^ Jürgen Kowallik (10 May 2015). "Gedenkfeier für Günter Grass – 'König der Spielzeughändler ist gegangen' ". Express. Cologne. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
79. ^ a b "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1999: Günter Grass – Bibliography". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 13 April 2015.

Sources

* Mews, Siegfried (2008). Günter Grass and His Critics: From The Tin Drum to Crabwalk. Studies in German Literature. Rochester, New York: Camden House. ISBN 978-1-57113-062-4. OCLC 181424200.

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Günter Grass.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Günter Grass.

* List of Works
* Günter Grass at perlentaucher.de - das Kulturmagazin (in German)
* Günter Grass at gdansk-life.com (in English)
* "Grass admits serving with Waffen-SS", The Guardian
* Gaffney, Elizabeth (Summer 1991). "Gunter Grass, The Art of Fiction No. 124". The Paris Review. Summer 1991 (119).
* Günter Grass; Norman Mailer (2007). "The 20th Century on Trial" (Interview). Interviewed by Andrew O'Hagan. New York Public Library.
* "Günter Grass talking about The Tin Drum". World Book Club. BBC. 3 October 2009.
* Appearances on C-SPAN
* Günter Grass at IMDb
* Günter Grass on Nobelprize.org

Awards and achievements

Preceded by

Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark

|  European of the Year
(by the Danish European Movement)
2012  | Succeeded by

Emmelie de Forest

* v
* t
* e

Works by Günter Grass

Prose|

| Danzig Trilogy|

* The Tin Drum (1959)
* Cat and Mouse (1961)
* Dog Years (1963)

|

Others|

* Local Anaesthetic (1969)
* From the Diary of a Snail (1973)
* The Flounder (1977)
* The Meeting at Telgte (1979)
* Headbirths, or, the Germans are Dying Out (1980)
* The Rat (1986)
* The Call of the Toad (1992)
* Too Far Afield (1995)
* My Century (1999)
* Crabwalk (2002)
* Peeling the Onion (2006)
* The Box (2008)

Poetry|

* "What Must Be Said" (2012)

Plays|

* The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising (1966)

Adaptations|

* The Tin Drum (1979)
* The Call of the Toad (2005)

Awards received by Günter Grass

* v
* t
* e

Recipients of the Georg Büchner Prize

1923–1950|

* 1923 Adam Karrillon and Arnold Mendelssohn
* 1924 Alfred Bock and Paul Thesing
* 1925 Wilhelm Michel and Rudolf Koch
* 1926 Christian Heinrich Kleukens and Wilhelm Petersen
* 1927 Kasimir Edschmid and Johannes Bischoff
* 1928 Richard Hoelscher and Well Habicht
* 1929 Carl Zuckmayer and Adam Antes
* 1930 Nikolaus Schwarzkopf and Johannes Lippmann
* 1931 Alexander Posch and Hans Simon
* 1932 Albert H. Rausch and Adolf Bode
* 1933–1944 not given
* 1945 Hans Schiebelhuth
* 1946 Fritz Usinger
* 1947 Anna Seghers
* 1948 Hermann Heiss
* 1949 Carl Gunschmann
* 1950 Elisabeth Langgässer

Since 1951|

* 1951 Gottfried Benn
* 1952 not given
* 1953 Ernst Kreuder
* 1954 Martin Kessel
* 1955 Marie Luise Kaschnitz
* 1956 Karl Krolow
* 1957 Erich Kästner
* 1958 Max Frisch
* 1959 Günter Eich
* 1960 Paul Celan
* 1961 Hans Erich Nossack
* 1962 Wolfgang Koeppen
* 1963 Hans Magnus Enzensberger
* 1964 Ingeborg Bachmann
* 1965 Günter Grass
* 1966 Wolfgang Hildesheimer
* 1967 Heinrich Böll
* 1968 Golo Mann
* 1969 Helmut Heißenbüttel
* 1970 Thomas Bernhard
* 1971 Uwe Johnson
* 1972 Elias Canetti
* 1973 Peter Handke
* 1974 Hermann Kesten
* 1975 Manès Sperber
* 1976 Heinz Piontek
* 1977 Reiner Kunze
* 1978 Hermann Lenz
* 1979 Ernst Meister
* 1980 Christa Wolf
* 1981 Martin Walser
* 1982 Peter Weiss
* 1983 Wolfdietrich Schnurre
* 1984 Ernst Jandl
* 1985 Heiner Müller
* 1986 Friedrich Dürrenmatt
* 1987 Erich Fried
* 1988 Albert Drach
* 1989 Botho Strauß
* 1990 Tankred Dorst
* 1991 Wolf Biermann
* 1992 George Tabori
* 1993 Peter Rühmkorf
* 1994 Adolf Muschg
* 1995 Durs Grünbein
* 1996 Sarah Kirsch
* 1997 H. C. Artmann
* 1998 Elfriede Jelinek
* 1999 Arnold Stadler
* 2000 Volker Braun
* 2001 Friederike Mayröcker
* 2002 Wolfgang Hilbig
* 2003 Alexander Kluge
* 2004 Wilhelm Genazino
* 2005 Brigitte Kronauer
* 2006 Oskar Pastior
* 2007 Martin Mosebach
* 2008 Josef Winkler
* 2009 Walter Kappacher
* 2010 Reinhard Jirgl
* 2011 Friedrich Christian Delius
* 2012 Felicitas Hoppe
* 2013 Sibylle Lewitscharoff
* 2014 Jürgen Becker
* 2015 Rainald Goetz
* 2016 Marcel Beyer
* 2017 Jan Wagner
* 2018 Terézia Mora
* 2019 Lukas Bärfuss
* 2020 Elke Erb
* 2021 Clemens J. Setz
* 2022 Emine Sevgi Özdamar
* 2023: Lutz Seiler

* v
* t
* e

Recipients of the Sonning Prize

* Winston Churchill (1950)
* Albert Schweitzer (1959)
* Bertrand Russell (1960)
* Niels Bohr (1961)
* Alvar Aalto (1962)
* Karl Barth (1963)
* Dominique Pire (1964)
* Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi (1965)
* Laurence Olivier (1966)
* Willem Visser 't Hooft (1967)
* Arthur Koestler (1968)
* Halldór Laxness (1969)
* Max Tau (1970)
* Danilo Dolci (1971)
* Karl Popper (1973)
* Hannah Arendt (1975)
* Arne Næss (1977)
* Hermann Gmeiner (1979)
* Dario Fo (1981)
* Simone de Beauvoir (1983)
* William Heinesen (1985)
* Jürgen Habermas (1987)
* Ingmar Bergman (1989)
* Václav Havel (1991)
* Krzysztof Kieślowski (1994)
* Günter Grass (1996)
* Jørn Utzon (1998)
* Eugenio Barba (2000)
* Mary Robinson (2002)
* Mona Hatoum (2004)
* Ágnes Heller (2006)
* Renzo Piano (2008)
* Hans Magnus Enzensberger (2010)
* Orhan Pamuk (2012)
* Michael Haneke (2014)
* Lars von Trier (2018)
* Svetlana Alexievich (2021)
* Marina Abramović (2023)

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature

1901–1920|

* 1901: Sully Prudhomme
* 1902: Theodor Mommsen
* 1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
* 1904: Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray
* 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz
* 1906: Giosuè Carducci
* 1907: Rudyard Kipling
* 1908: Rudolf Eucken
* 1909: Selma Lagerlöf
* 1910: Paul Heyse
* 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck
* 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann
* 1913: Rabindranath Tagore
* 1914
* 1915: Romain Rolland
* 1916: Verner von Heidenstam
* 1917: Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan
* 1918
* 1919: Carl Spitteler
* 1920: Knut Hamsun

1921–1940|

* 1921: Anatole France
* 1922: Jacinto Benavente
* 1923: W. B. Yeats
* 1924: Władysław Reymont
* 1925: George Bernard Shaw
* 1926: Grazia Deledda
* 1927: Henri Bergson
* 1928: Sigrid Undset
* 1929: Thomas Mann
* 1930: Sinclair Lewis
* 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumously)
* 1932: John Galsworthy
* 1933: Ivan Bunin
* 1934: Luigi Pirandello
* 1935
* 1936: Eugene O'Neill
* 1937: Roger Martin du Gard
* 1938: Pearl S. Buck
* 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
* 1940

1941–1960|

* 1941
* 1942
* 1943
* 1944: Johannes V. Jensen
* 1945: Gabriela Mistral
* 1946: Hermann Hesse
* 1947: André Gide
* 1948: T. S. Eliot
* 1949: William Faulkner
* 1950: Bertrand Russell
* 1951: Pär Lagerkvist
* 1952: François Mauriac
* 1953: Winston Churchill
* 1954: Ernest Hemingway
* 1955: Halldór Laxness
* 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez
* 1957: Albert Camus
* 1958: Boris Pasternak
* 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo
* 1960: Saint-John Perse

1961–1980|

* 1961: Ivo Andrić
* 1962: John Steinbeck
* 1963: Giorgos Seferis
* 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award)
* 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov
* 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs
* 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias
* 1968: Yasunari Kawabata
* 1969: Samuel Beckett
* 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
* 1971: Pablo Neruda
* 1972: Heinrich Böll
* 1973: Patrick White
* 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson
* 1975: Eugenio Montale
* 1976: Saul Bellow
* 1977: Vicente Aleixandre
* 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer
* 1979: Odysseas Elytis
* 1980: Czesław Miłosz

1981–2000|

* 1981: Elias Canetti
* 1982: Gabriel García Márquez
* 1983: William Golding
* 1984: Jaroslav Seifert
* 1985: Claude Simon
* 1986: Wole Soyinka
* 1987: Joseph Brodsky
* 1988: Naguib Mahfouz
* 1989: Camilo José Cela
* 1990: Octavio Paz
* 1991: Nadine Gordimer
* 1992: Derek Walcott
* 1993: Toni Morrison
* 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe
* 1995: Seamus Heaney
* 1996: Wisława Szymborska
* 1997: Dario Fo
* 1998: José Saramago
* 1999: Günter Grass
* 2000: Gao Xingjian

2001–2020|

* 2001: V. S. Naipaul
* 2002: Imre Kertész
* 2003: J. M. Coetzee
* 2004: Elfriede Jelinek
* 2005: Harold Pinter
* 2006: Orhan Pamuk
* 2007: Doris Lessing
* 2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio
* 2009: Herta Müller
* 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa
* 2011: Tomas Tranströmer
* 2012: Mo Yan
* 2013: Alice Munro
* 2014: Patrick Modiano
* 2015: Svetlana Alexievich
* 2016: Bob Dylan
* 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro
* 2018: Olga Tokarczuk
* 2019: Peter Handke
* 2020: Louise Glück

2021–present|

* 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah
* 2022: Annie Ernaux
* 2023: Jon Fosse
* 2024: to be announced

* v
* t
* e

1999 Nobel Prize laureates

Chemistry|

* Ahmed Zewail (Egypt)

Literature (1999)|

* Günter Grass (Germany)

Peace|

* Médecins Sans Frontières (Switzerland)

Physics|

* Gerard 't Hooft (Netherlands)
* Martinus J. G. Veltman (Netherlands)

Physiology or Medicine|

* Günter Blobel (Germany/United States)

Economic Sciences|

* Robert Mundell (Canada)

Nobel Prize recipients
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Prince or Princess of Asturias Award for Literature

Prince of Asturias Award for Literature

* 1981: José Hierro
* 1982: Miguel Delibes and Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
* 1983: Juan Rulfo
* 1984: Pablo García Baena
* 1985: Ángel González
* 1986: Mario Vargas Llosa and Rafael Lapesa
* 1987: Camilo José Cela
* 1988: Carmen Martín Gaite and José Ángel Valente
* 1989: Ricardo Gullón
* 1990: Arturo Uslar Pietri
* 1991: The people of Puerto Rico
* 1992: Francisco Nieva
* 1993: Claudio Rodríguez
* 1994: Carlos Fuentes
* 1995: Carlos Bousoño
* 1996: Francisco Umbral
* 1997: Álvaro Mutis
* 1998: Francisco Ayala
* 1999: Günter Grass
* 2000: Augusto Monterroso
* 2001: Doris Lessing
* 2002: Arthur Miller
* 2003: Fatema Mernissi and Susan Sontag
* 2004: Claudio Magris
* 2005: Nélida Piñon
* 2006: Paul Auster
* 2007: Amos Oz
* 2008: Margaret Atwood
* 2009: Ismail Kadare
* 2010: Amin Maalouf
* 2011: Leonard Cohen
* 2012: Philip Roth
* 2013: Antonio Muñoz Molina
* 2014: John Banville

Princess of Asturias Award for Literature

* 2015: Leonardo Padura
* 2016: Richard Ford
* 2017: Adam Zagajewski
* 2018: Fred Vargas
* 2019: Siri Hustvedt
* 2020: Anne Carson
* 2021: Emmanuel Carrère
* 2022: Juan Mayorga
* 2023: Haruki Murakami

* v
* t
* e

German-language literature

Related articles|

* German language
* History of Germany
* History of Austria
* History of Switzerland
* History of Liechtenstein
* Old High German literature
* Middle High German literature
* Early New High German literature
* Sturm und Drang
* Weimar Classicism
* Romanticism
* Literary realism
* Weimar culture
* Exilliteratur
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* Swiss literature
* German studies

Related categories|

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Medieval|

* Minnesang
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* Der von Kürenberg
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* Walther von der Vogelweide
* Wolfram von Eschenbach
* Albrecht von Johansdorf
* Heinrich von Morungen
* Gottfried von Strassburg
* Dietrich von Bern
* Nibelungenlied

Early modern|

* Simon Dach
* Paul Fleming
* Hans Folz
* Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
* Andreas Gryphius
* Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau
* Johann Michael Moscherosch
* Martin Opitz
* Hans Sachs
* Angelus Silesius
* Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick
* Georg Wickram

18th century|

* Barthold Heinrich Brockes
* Christian Gellert
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
* Johann Christoph Gottsched
* Johann Christian Günther
* Friedrich Hölderlin
* Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
* Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
* Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
* Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg)
* Jean Paul
* Friedrich Schiller
* Johann Gottfried Schnabel
* Christoph Martin Wieland

19th century|

* Bettina von Arnim
* Achim von Arnim
* Clemens Brentano
* Georg Büchner
* Adelbert von Chamisso
* Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
* Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
* Joseph von Eichendorff
* Theodor Fontane
* Gustav Freytag
* Jeremias Gotthelf
* Franz Grillparzer
* Jacob Grimm
* Wilhelm Grimm
* Gerhart Hauptmann
* Christian Friedrich Hebbel
* Johann Peter Hebel
* Heinrich Heine
* Georg Herwegh
* Paul Heyse
* E. T. A. Hoffmann
* Friedrich Hölderlin
* Gottfried Keller
* Heinrich von Kleist
* Nikolaus Lenau
* Karl May
* Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
* Eduard Mörike
* Johann Nestroy
* Wilhelm Raabe
* Adalbert Stifter
* Theodor Storm
* Ludwig Tieck
* Ludwig Uhland

20th century|

* May Ayim
* Ingeborg Bachmann
* Hermann Bahr
* Vicki Baum
* Johannes R. Becher
* Gottfried Benn
* Thomas Bernhard
* Heinrich Böll
* Thomas Brasch
* Volker Braun
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* Heimito von Doderer
* Friedrich Dürrenmatt
* Lion Feuchtwanger
* Marieluise Fleißer
* Erich Fried
* Max Frisch
* Stefan George
* Günter Grass
* Peter Handke
* Marlen Haushofer
* Hermann Hesse
* Georg Heym
* Hugo von Hofmannsthal
* Ödön von Horváth
* Ricarda Huch
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* Ernst Jandl
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* Franz Kafka
* Erich Kästner
* Hermann Kesten
* Irmgard Keun
* Sarah Kirsch
* Egon Erwin Kisch
* Siegfried Kracauer
* Karl Kraus
* Else Lasker-Schüler
* Gert Ledig
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* Heinrich Mann
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* Friederike Mayröcker
* Christian Morgenstern
* Erich Mühsam
* Heiner Müller
* Adolf Muschg
* Robert Musil
* Erich Maria Remarque
* Rainer Maria Rilke
* Joseph Roth
* Nelly Sachs
* Ernst von Salomon
* Paul Scheerbart
* Arthur Schnitzler
* Helga Schubert
* Kurt Schwitters
* W. G. Sebald
* Anna Seghers
* Ernst Toller
* Georg Trakl
* Kurt Tucholsky
* Robert Walser
* Josef Weinheber
* Peter Weiss
* Franz Werfel
* Christa Wolf
* Fritz Zorn (Fritz Angst)
* Stefan Zweig

Contemporary
writers|

* Zsuzsa Bánk
* Thomas Brussig
* Jenny Erpenbeck
* Rainald Goetz
* Durs Grünbein
* Peter Handke
* Judith Hermann
* Elfriede Jelinek
* Reinhard Jirgl
* Wladimir Kaminer
* Daniel Kehlmann
* Esther Kinsky
* Alexander Kluge
* Barbara Köhler
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* Jan Wagner
* Martin Walser
* Peter Wawerzinek
* Wolf Wondratschek
* Feridun Zaimoğlu
* Juli Zeh

German-language
Nobel laureates|

* Theodor Mommsen
* Rudolf Christoph Eucken
* Paul Heyse
* Gerhart Hauptmann
* Carl Spitteler
* Thomas Mann
* Hermann Hesse
* Nelly Sachs
* Heinrich Böll
* Elias Canetti
* Günter Grass
* Elfriede Jelinek
* Herta Müller
* Peter Handke

German-language
literary awards|

* Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
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* Sigmund Freud Prize
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* Goethe Prize
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