Novemberland: Selected Poems 1956-1993

Novemberland: Selected Poems 1956-1993

These fifty-four poems, spanning four decades, depict a landscape at once recognizably mundane and grotesquely surreal. Grass's spirited humor and linguistic creativity transcend the cant of political poetry. The German originals face the translation. Translated by Michael Hamburger. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book From Library Journal Known primarily as a novelist in this country, Grass has also produced a significant body of graphic art, drama, and poetry. This anthology contains 54 poems in the original German with facing page translations by the esteemed Hamburger, whose published translations of Grass poems began more than 30 years ago. This volume includes selections from all of Grass's major collections, beginning with Die Vorzuge der Windhuhner and ending with Novemberland, 13 sonnets published in 1993, all of which appear here. Grass's poems treat many of the same motifs as his novels, and all document his fascination with Poland, Danzig, and recent German history. Despite an absence of commentary, this is a necessary addition to any collection of the author's works.?Michael T. O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From the Back Cover Novemberland is a bilingual volume of selected poems from the past four decades by Germany's preeminent contemporary writer. Before Guenter Grass's first novel, The Tin Drum, received international acclaim as one of the most important postwar novels ever written, Grass was renowned in his native country for his poetry. Informed by the same baroque inventiveness and mordant wit that characterize such celebrated prose works as The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse, Dog Years, and The Flounder, these poems depict a landscape at once recognizably mundane and grotesquely surreal. About the Author G