Acclaimed as the greatest German novel written since the end of World War II, The Tin Drum is the autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and who, as the novel begins, is being held in a mental institution. Willfully stunting his growth at three feet for many years, wielding his tin drum and piercing scream as anarchistic weapons, he provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition in the modern world. “It is not too audacious to assume that The Tin Drum will become one of the enduring literary works of the twentieth century.” - The Swedish Academy, awarding Günter Grass the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1999