Günter Grass is the most consistently interesting and disturbing writer at work in Europe today. With his prodigious talents, unmistakable voice, alarming energy, wayward genius and sheer physical presence, he has made himself a tremendous force in modern European literature. He has faults, naturally: as befits a great writer, he sometimes has great faults. But—as he himself might say—this much is certain: for the German novel he has once more gained an international audience. (p. 11)

The facts of Grass's life have been repeatedly recorded in his fiction. In the Danzig Trilogy—The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse and Dog Years—the suburb of Langfuhr is presented to us with such ferocious devotion and in such meticulous detail that we almost feel we could find our way around the area like residents. (p. 12)

Yet Grass is not an autobiographical writer in the sense that O'Neill is...