Plechový bubínek

The 1959 novel, which made Grass famous all over the world, has been translated into many languages and made into a film.
In the early 1950s, Oskar Matzerath, a hunchback, is drumming and writing the course of his life in a treatment and nursing home. An outsider who can drum out the truth and make glass shatter, he shows himself to be the only sane one in a world of appearances, lies and crime. After reading his fantastic autobiography, which takes us from pre-war Danzig to post-war Düsseldorf, we realise that we know much more about Germany and Central Europe - both in the time of the slaughter of nations and in the Biedermeier of reconstruction - than we did before.

Czech edition