Landmark: The Tin Drum

Anne McElvoy is joined by the German novelist Eugen Ruge, British author Lawrence Norfolk, the journalist Oliver Kamm; and the literary historians, Karen Leeder and Julian Preece for a programme devoted to Günter Grass and his landmark novel, The Tin Drum.

The Tin Drum was published in 1959 and helped shape the way Germans came to think of the Nazi period and its immediate aftermath. It also presented the world with one of the most memorable characters in 20th century fiction. Oskar Matzerath is a small boy who decides at the age of three that he will stop growing and instead trains his child like eye and his eloquent drum on the grotesque manoeuvrings of the adult world - its affairs; its political affiliations; its betrayals; and the feast of sensations it generates as it revolves on its axis.

Producer: Zahid Warley.