Sarah Wolf
German Book Office New York
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November Book of the Month
The Tin Drum by Guenther Grass (newly translated by Breon Mitchell)
Guenther Grass's The Tin Drum , newly translated by Breon Mitchell, was released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in October 2009.
In 1959 The Tin Drum made its US debut. Having already wowed readers in Germany, the English translation by Ralph Manheim quickly became a runaway bestseller, solidifying its place as an international literary classic. In honor of its fiftieth anniversary, American professor and scholar Breon Mitchell, has joined translators around the world in revisiting Grass’s captivating and challenging work. The result is impressive: the most nuanced and linguistically accurate English translation of The Tin Drum to date.
Mitchell has taken great care to reproduce the work’s signature style and rhythm, leading to a more refined portrayal of Grass’s characters. No longer restrained by the social taboos translator Manheim faced in the fifties, Mitchell has reintroduced Grass’s more shocking, overtly sexual material: the inclusion of which has drawn attention to just how progressive the work really was.
Mitchell’s attention to detail and commitment to the original text has led to a volume that truly reflects the complexity of the original work. With the arrival of this 21st century retranslation, a new generation is sure to fall in love with this timeless masterpiece.
Guenther Grass was born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927, and is the widely acclaimed author of numerous novels, plays, poems, and essays. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999.
Breon Mitchell is a professor of Germanic studies and comparative literature at Indiana University. He was awarded the Kurt and Helen Wolff Prize for his translation of Uwe Timm’s Morenga in 2004.
“…given Grass's close involvement with this new translation, it is fair to call this the definitive version of arguably the most important German novel of the postwar era.” The Observer
"[The Tin Drum] is as daring and imaginative as Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or Toni Morrison's Beloved.” Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
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