Publisher's Synopsis
Nadie sabrá leer nuestro presente sin haber leìdo El tambor de hojalata. Una obra cumbre de la literatura contemporánea, la novela emblemática del Premio Nobel Günter Grass. Oskar Matzerath, uno de los personajes literarios más entrañables de nuestro tiempo, es un niño que se resiste a crecer porque la sociedad pequeñoburguesa del nazismo no le gusta.
El dìa de su tercer cumpleaños es una fecha determinante en su vida. No sólo es el dìa en que toma la decisión de dejar de crecer, sino que recibe su primer tambor de hojalata, objeto que se convertirá en su compañero inseparable para el resto de sus dìas.
La crìtica mordaz, la ironìa despiadada, el espectacular sentido del humor y la libertad creadora con que Günter Grass construye esta novela la convierten en una de las grandes obras de la historia de la literatura. Publicada en 1959, cosechó un éxito inmediato e inauguró la nueva literatura alemana. Medio siglo después, la fascinación que despierta no ha terminado. Oskar Matzerath sigue redoblando y su redoble continúa estremeciendo.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
The Tin Drum, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, was published in Ralph Manheim's outstanding translation in 1959. It became a runaway bestseller and catapulted its young author to the forefront of world literature.
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, along with Grass's publishers all over the world, is bringing out a new translation of this classic novel. Breon Mitchell, acclaimed translator and scholar, has drawn from many sources: from a wealth of detailed scholarship; from a wide range of newly-available reference works; and from the author himself. The result is a translation that is more faithful to Grass's style and rhythm, restores omissions, and reflects more fully the complexity of the original work.
After fifty years, THE TIN DRUM has, if anything, gained in power and relevance. All of Grass's amazing evocations are still there, and still amazing: Oskar Matzerath, the indomitable drummer; his grandmother, Anna Koljaiczek; his mother, Agnes; Alfred Matzerath and Jan Bronski, his presumptive fathers; Oskar's midget friends—Bebra, the great circus master and Roswitha Raguna, the famous somnambulist; Sister Scholastica and Sister Agatha, the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke; the Greffs, the Schefflers, Herr Fajngold, all Kashubians, Poles, Germans, and Jews—waiting to be discovered and re-discovered.
