The novelist Gunter Grass died at the age of 87. Here is all you want to know, and more!
Biography - A Short Wiki
An important 20th-century German author, he is best known for his 1959 novel, The Tin Drum, which is a prime example of the European genre of magic realism. He was honored with the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He and his sister grew up in a Protestant family in the city of Danzig. He married his second wife in 1979.
Quotes
"Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.
"I have heard my fill of hurtful words. I think it’s especially egregious when citizens like me, who point out abuses in their country, are referred to as ‘do-gooders.’ This is how a phrase that can be used to stop an argument dead becomes part of common usage.
"If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle – absolute busyness – then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy – and without consciousness.
"Everyone is born into a certain era. I wouldn’t want to see anyone faced with the circumstances that prevailed at the time, when there were few or no alternatives.
"I belonged to the generation that grew up under National Socialism, and was blinded and led astray – and allowed itself to be led astray.