The Tin Drum

The Tin Drum, one of many nice novels of the 20th century, was revealed in Ralph Manheim’s excellent translation in 1959. It turned a runaway bestseller and catapulted its younger creator to the forefront of world literature.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the unique publication, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, together with Grass’s publishers everywhere in the world, is bringing out a brand new translation of this basic novel. Breon Mitchell, acclaimed translator and scholar, has drawn from many sources: from a wealth of detailed scholarship; from a variety of newly-available reference works; and from the creator himself. The result’s a translation that’s extra devoted to Grass’s fashion and rhythm, restores omissions, and displays extra totally the complexity of the unique work.

After fifty years, THE TIN DRUM has, if something, gained in energy and relevance. All of Grass’s superb evocations are nonetheless there, and nonetheless superb: Oskar Matzerath, the indomitable drummer; his grandmother, Anna Koljaiczek; his mom, Agnes; Alfred Matzerath and Jan Bronski, his presumptive fathers; Oskar’s midget mates—Bebra, the nice circus grasp and Roswitha Raguna, the well-known somnambulist; Sister Scholastica and Sister Agatha, the Proper Reverend Father Wiehnke; the Greffs, the Schefflers, Herr Fajngold, all Kashubians, Poles, Germans, and Jews—ready to be found and re-discovered.