Claudia Mayer-Iswandy, Günter Grass. 2002

Abstract

Germanisten of a certain age will remember a time when such down-to-earth series as “Rowohlts Monographien” and “Köpfe des XX. Jahrhunderts” were the first port of call for those seeking a combination of biographical contextualization and basic factual information on a major writer. Belonging essentially to the genre of ‘literary biography', this new “dtv portrait” of Grass performs a comparable function, but does so at greater length and in more detail and is designed to be more reader-friendly and attention-holding without losing any of the authority of its predecessors. For a work of its length, Claudia Mayer-Iswandy's biography offers an admirable range of lucidly presented information on Grass the writer, the painter and sculptor, the politically engaged citizen, the essayist and commentator on affairs of state. His private life is treated with discretion, except to note where it has left its mark on the subject matter of his fiction. We are, however, afforded a rare insight into his creative impasses and moments of personal crisis and introspection. Responding to the cliché of Grass the writer as “Im Ausland geliebt – im Inland gehaßt”, the volume pays much attention to his work's reception, both in the German-speaking countries and, following Die Blechtrommel, internationally. Mayer-Iswandy documents the frequent mismatch between critical and popular responses to his fiction in Germany and abroad, with, in particular, örtlich betäubt and Zunge zeigen finding greater favour in the English-speaking countries. The reasons for this are not gone into.