The Tin Drum

Günter Grass

• Publisher: HarperVia
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780547339108
• eBook ISBN:
  9780547417738
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

One of the greatest modern novels, The Tin Drum is the story 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. Matzerath provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition in the modern world.
In this edition, Breon Mitchell, acclaimed translator and scholar, draws from a wealth of detailed scholarship to produce a translation that is more faithful to Grass's style and rhythm than the 1959 translation, restoring omissions and reflecting the complexity of the original work.
After more than sixy years, The Tin Drum has, if anything, gained in power and relevance. All of Grass's amazing evocations are still there, and still amazing: Oskar Matzerath, the indomitable drummer; his grandmother, Anna Koljaiczek; his mother, Agnes; Alfred Matzerath and Jan Bronski, his presumptive fathers; Oskar's midget friends—Bebra, the great circus master and Roswitha Raguna, the famous somnambulist; Sister Scholastica and Sister Agatha, the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke; the Greffs, the Schefflers, Herr Fajngold, all Kashubians, Poles, Germans, and Jews—waiting to be discovered and re-discovered.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Book One
• The Wide Skirt
• Under the Raft
• Moth and Light Bulb
• The Photo Album
• Glass, Glass, Little Glass
• The Schedule
• Rasputin and the ABCs
• Long-Distance Song Effects from the Stockturm
• The Grandstand
• Shop Windows
• No Miracle
• Good Friday Fare
• Tapering toward the Foot
• Herbert Truczinski’s Back
• Niobe
• Faith Hope Love
• Book Two
• Scrap Metal
• The Polish Post Office
• House of Cards
• He Lies in Saspe
• Maria
• Fizz Powder
• Special Communiqués
• Carrying My Helplessness to Frau Greff
• Seventy-five Kilos
• Bebra’s Theater at the Front
• Inspecting Concrete—or Mystical Barbaric Bored
• The Imitation of Christ
• The Dusters
• The Christmas Play
• The Ant Trail
• Should I or Shouldn’t I
• Disinfectant
• Growth in a Boxcar
• Book Three
• Flintstones and Gravestones
• Fortuna North
• Madonna 49
• The Hedgehog
• In the Wardrobe
• Klepp
• On the Coco Rug
• The Onion Cellar
• On the Atlantic Wall or Bunkers Can’t Cast Off Concrete
• The Ring Finger
• The Last Tram or Adoration of a Canning Jar
• Thirty
• Translator’s Afterword
• Glossary
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH