G ünter Grass in Gdansk
The Gdansk-born writer visits his home town and talks to writers he has influenced. Grass is known mainly as the author of
The Tin Drum, a powerful tale about living under the Nazi regime.
In his work, Grass has made the city of Gdansk/Danzig, which was fought over by Germans and Poles for decades, a central theme, reports Deutsche Welle magazine.
"...in the last chapter of my novel "The Flounder," I describe the insurgency in the Polish port cities, especially Gdansk, where the militia shot at the workers. That becomes part of the plot. At that time, I was the only writer who wrote about that. Polish writers couldn't write about it. The censors wouldn't have allowed it. I was a sort of surrogate writer for Polish literature. So, my relationship to Poland has been there for decades. And it is continuing."
Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.