Harcourt, Inc.
Available: 06/15/07
6 x 9 · 400 pages
978-0-15-101477-4 CDN $29.00 · cl

Buy the Book
Amazon.ca
Chapters.Indigo.ca
Independent Retailers

Peeling the Onion

A Memoir

Günter Grass

translated by Michael Henry Heim

Peeling the Onion is Günter Grass’ first strictly autobiographical work and provides a unique contribution to both history and literature. It is the story of his formative years, the two decades from roughly 1939 to 1959, from a childhood in wartime Danzig, through the terrors of war and the chaos of post-war new beginnings to the writing of his masterpiece, The Tin Drum, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its original publication in 2009.

The book discusses Grass’ time in the Waffen-SS, a period of his life he’d never been explicit about before, and it caused a sensation in Germany and worldwide. The ensuing controversy was covered by all major newspapers and drew comments from many important figures.

This masterful work teems with the details of Grass’ life during those two decades: the bravado of youth, the fear of the rookie, the hunger of the vanquished, the rubble of post-war Germany, the thrill of wild love affairs, the exhilaration of 1950s Paris. Peeling the Onion reveals Grass at his most intimate. The book has been number one on the bestseller lists since its publication in late August 2006.

“A memoir of rare literary beauty.” (Ian Buruma in the New Yorker)

Günter Grass was born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927. Widely acclaimed for his plays, essays, poems and numerous novels, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.