Günter Wilhelm Grass (German: [ˈɡʏntɐ ˈɡʁas]; 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.
He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). As a teenager, he served as a drafted soldier from late 1944 in the Waffen-SS and was taken 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 him the Nobel Prize in Literature, praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".
I valgkampåret 1969 rejser en forfatter gennem Forbundsrepublikken og holder op mod hundrede valgtaler for SPD. Tilbage i Berlin sidder hans kone og fire børn og undrer sig over, at han knap nok er hjemme i weekenderne.
I farten bliver børnenes spørgsmål snuppet af. I dagbogen indhentes det forsømte.
En far, der for længst er berømt som forfatter, forsøger at forklare, hvorfor han udnytter denne berømmelse som politisk fortaler. Det er – som enhver tysk historie – en historie med fortid.
Mens faderen fortæller sine børn om forfølgelsen og fordrivelsen af Danziger-jøderne og opfinder adjunkten, snegleeksperten Hermann Ott, som af sine elever kaldes Zweifel (= tvivl), bliver valgkampens dagligdag mangesidig.
Fortællinger og billeder veksler og væves ind i hinanden. Tiden indhentes og ophobes. Stilstand og fremskridt, stædig melankoli og utopiske udflugter bliver ikke beskrevet, snarere fortalt: hvorledes jøderne køber deres synagoge, hvorledes Zweifel overlever krigen i kælderen, hvem der i dag går med Bebels lommeur, hvorfor Laura ønsker sig en hest, hvad Augst søger og ikke finder, hvor langvarig valgkampen er og hvor knap sejren – og hvad sneglen i det hele taget betyder.
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