Nobel laureate Günter Grass is Dead – Expressen

The German writer and Nobel laureate Günter Grass is dead.

The author of “The Tin Drum” and “Flounder” was 87 years old.

The artist, poet and author Günter Grass is dead. Grass, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, was 87 years old. In his voluminous publication is particularly noticeable debut book “The Tin Drum” from 1959 and “Flounder” from 1977. Several of his novels have also been dramatized as film and theater. In 2006, his autobiography “When you peel the onion” out and caused a minor scandal in Germany. The book told Gunter Grass, among other things, how he joined the Waffen SS as a 17-year-old.

After the war he continued as politically active – but then lay involvement mainly on the left wing. In his role as one of the German postwar most influential intellectuals he got involved in both the issues of same-sex marriage and the publication of the cartoons. He also supported the German Social Democrats actively in certain elections. As late as 2012 led his poem about Israel a slight culture brawl – even here at home.

The world has lost a voice that managed to take out history’s forgotten face of frolicsome black fables, to paraphrase the Swedish Academy justification.