The Tin Drum

Oskar Matzerath, inmate in a mental institution, narrates the extraordinary events of his life thus far. On his third birthday, the same day that he receives his first tin drum, he decides to stop growing by throwing himself down the stairs; he later goes on to impregnate his father’s second wife and play a key role in the deaths of his parents. The most unreliable of narrators, Oskar is a mentally disturbed adult recounting an untrustworthy story; nonetheless, his lifetime’s sufferings deliver a profound insight into the horrors of the Nazi regime, as he brandishes his tin drum and piercing scream to recount memories from his nightmarish past. Mysterious, comic, disturbing and original, this novel portrays the ambiguous and thorny relationship between Poland and Germany through the years of Nazism and Communism. Grass’s wordplay and linguistic innovation lends a very apt musicality to this life story.