5 things you should know about Günter Grass
On Wednesday 26 February we host EUROPEANS: GÜNTER GRASS at Rich Mix, where we’ll be joined by Kneehigh Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble to discuss their productions of The Tin Drum (Berliner Ensemble’s production is opening at The Coronet Theatre 24th Feb) and Professor Rebecca Braun from Lancaster University.
Günter Grass died in 2015, seeing large obituaries celebrating his work pour in from The Guardian, The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Washington Post, to name a few. As we reflect on the major impact he had on European culture, here are some key facts about Grass for those who are less familiar.
1) He was a visual artist
Grass was, in fact, a visual artist and a sculptor. Initially he had gone to art school and continued to sketch and sculpt throughout his life. He regularly produced the artwork for his book covers, which tended to be absurdist, but clearly showed his talents as a visual artist. The Günter Grass House in Lübeck, a museum dedicated to Grass, houses exhibitions of his drawings and sculptures, as well as an archive and a library.
2) He was in the Waffen-SS
Despite dedicating his life to being Germany’s post-WW2 moral conscience, in 2006 Grass revealed that he had in fact been in the Waffen-SS, a military branch of the Nazi Party's SS organisation. The revelation shook Grass’ reputation and many felt that it had come too late, branding him as a hypocrite. Prior to this, he had been seen as a typical member of the "Flakhelfer generation”: those too young to be involved with the Nazi regime beyond youth organisations.
3) He is a major figure in magic realism
Grass’ combination of folk culture, myth, and allegory has made him one of the most significant figures in Europe for developing the style of magic realism in literature. Salman Rushdie (another Nobel Prize winner) has cited him as a major influence on his work. A good example of this is his novel The Flounder (1977), in which a fish is caught by a group of 1970s feminists and put on trial.
4) He was a part of Gruppe 47
Gruppe 47 was a meeting for writers organised by Hans Werner Richter, between 1947-1977. It aimed to renew German literature after the Second World War, providing a platform for new writers, as well as criticism and feedback.
A select group of invite-only writer would line up for what was jokingly referred to as an “electric chair,” where they read their work aloud. If the group approved, they could continue, if not the reading was stopped and critiqued harshly. The writer was not allowed to defend himself. Despite this brutal process, the group helped to foster not only Grass but several other major German authors, including:
5) He won the Nobel Prize for Literature
An obviously notable achievement, in 1999 Grass’ was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Swedish academy praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history”. They described his arguably most notable work, The Tin Drum (1959) as if “German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction.”
His work is commonly described as having contributed to the German canon ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ (trying saying that after a few glasses of wine) meaning "struggle to overcome the [negatives of the] past" or “working through the past” - as the academy describes, “he comes to grips with the enormous task of reviewing contemporary history by recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget because they had once believed in them.”
Book tickets to EUROPEANS: GÜNTER GRASS here.