Günter Grass, German Nobel prize-winning author, dies

This video says about itself:

Günter Grass poem on Hellas and austerity [English translation with Günter’s voice]

1 June 2012

”Drink up, at last, drink up” your hemlock, the EU commissioners urge, ”but Socrates returns the over-brimming cup”. A new unpublished poem by Nobel Literature Prize winner Gunter Grass is a fierce attack on European policy towards Greece.

According to ARD TV in Germany, Günter Grass, the Nobel prize-winning author of 1999, died today in Lübeck.

Translation of Günter Grass’ poem on the devastating European Union austerity policies in Greece: here.

Grass was especially active with the SPD in the 1960s in the election campaigns of Willy Brandt, supporting the latter’s Ostpolitik (opening up towards the east) which he regarded as a means of reconciliation. He resigned from the SPD in 1993 when the party agreed to the de facto abolition of the right to asylum: here.

Günter Grass, who died April 13 at the age of 87, ranks as one of Germany’s most remarkable authors. He was a wonderful narrative writer, and this judgement also applies to his works that were less successful than his outstanding Danzig trilogy of novels (The Tin Drum, 1959, Cat and Mouse, 1961, Dog Years, 1963): here.