FORA.tv Speaker - Gunter Grass

Gunter Wilhelm Grass (born October 16, 1927) is a Nobel Prize-winning German author.

He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Since 1945, he has lived in (the now former) West Germany, but in his fiction he frequently returns to the Danzig of his childhood.

He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum, a key text in European magic realism. His works frequently have a strong (left wing, socialist) political dimension, and Grass has been an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In 2006, Grass caused a controversy with his belated disclosure of Waffen-SS service during the final months of World War II.