Synopses & Reviews
"Grass has written a memoir of rare literary beauty . . . Peeling the Onion, like Grasss best novels, is filled with striking poetic imagery."The New Yorker
In this extraordinary memoir, Nobel Prizewinning author Günter Grass remembers his early life, from his boyhood in a cramped two-room apartment in Danzig through the late 1950s, when The Tin Drum was published. During the Second World War, Grass was drafted into the Waffen-SS at age seventeen. Wounded by shrapnel, he was taken prisoner by American forces and spent the final weeks of the war in an American POW camp. After the war, Grass resolved to become an artist and moved with his first wife to Paris, where he began to write the novel that would make him famous.
Full of the bravado of youth, the rubble of postwar Germany, the thrill of wild love affairs, and the exhilaration of Paris in the early fifties, Peeling the Onion reveals Grass at his most intimate.
"A fascinating, multilayered memoir . . . Peeling the Onion is well worth delving into." --The Christian Science Monitor
"Peeling the Onion is more than the stories of a soldier--it is a beautiful account of the ebbings of deprivations and the flowing of relief, both physical and metaphysical." --Los Angeles Times
Gunter Grass was born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927 and is the widely acclaimed author of plays, essays, poems, and numerous novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. He lives in Germany.
Review
PRAISE FOR PEELING THE ONION "Grass has written a memoir of rare literary beauty . . . Peeling the Onion, like Grasss best novels, is filled with striking poetic imagery."Ian Buruma, The New Yorker "Peeling the Onion is wakeful, twitchy, suspicious, shambling, and yet alsoif we are still permitted to use this word as a complimentsincere."John Leonard, Harper's Magazine
Review
"The opening pages of this posthumously published memoir of early childhood by Saramago are rapturously enthralling..."
—Kirkus Reviews
"The memories are not only small and immediate, vignettes with a sense of being interjected rather than relayed, but told with the immediacy of a child's gaze, so very different from an adult's reflection...[An] homage to Saramago's family and homeland, but also...the endlessly renewable life of the mind."
—The Independent (UK) "A great memoir...a tapestry of reminiscences stitched together haphazardly but with his usual irresistible charm... These are fragments of emotion and sensuous recollection that together poignantly conjure a distant childhood."
—Metro.co.uk "A moving account of his childhood and adolescence"
—The Spectator (UK) "I'll admit to having wept at the close of two of Saramago's novels, but his tale here is a gentler, more elegiac one. Small memories, perhaps, but a small masterpiece, too."
—The Business Post (Ireland) "The Master of Lisbon shows the grandeur of small things recollected in this refulgent memoir."
—Mail & Guardian (South Africa) "In Small Memories, Saramago examines the richness of his early experiences, taking pleasure in writing his past as the work of the man that he finally became."
—World Literature Today
Synopsis
In this extraordinary memoir, Nobel Prizewinning author Günter Grass remembers his early life, from his boyhood in a cramped two-room apartment in Danzig through the late 1950s, when The Tin Drum was published.During the Second World War, Grass volunteered for the submarine corps at the age of fifteen but was rejected; two years later, in 1944, he was instead drafted into the Waffen-SS. Taken prisoner by American forces as he was recovering from shrapnel wounds, he spent the final weeks of the war in an American POW camp. After the war, Grass resolved to become an artist and moved with his first wife to Paris, where he began to write the novel that would make him famous.Full of the bravado of youth, the rubble of postwar Germany, the thrill of wild love affairs, and the exhilaration of Paris in the early fifties, Peeling the Onionwhich caused great controversy when it was published in Germanyreveals Grass at his most intimate.
Synopsis
"One of Mr. Saramago's last books, and one of his most touching," (New York Times), this posthumous memoir of his childhood, written with characteristic wit and honesty, traces the formation of an individual into an artist who emerged against all odds as one of the world's most respected writers.
Synopsis
“Small Memories is a . . . nourishing last gift from a great writer.”—
Washington Post Shifting back and forth between childhood and his teenage years, between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this is a mosaic of memories, a simply told, affecting look into the author’s boyhood: the tragic death of his older brother at the age of four; his mother pawning the family’s blankets every spring and buying them back in time for winter; his beloved grandparents bringing the weaker piglets into their bed on cold nights; and Saramago’s early encounters with literature, from teaching himself to read by deciphering articles in the daily newspaper, to poring over an entertaining dialogue in a Portuguese-French conversation guide, not realizing that he was in fact reading a play by Molière.
Written with Saramago’s characteristic wit and honesty, Small Memories traces the formation of an artist fascinated by words and stories from an early age who emerged, against all odds, as one of the world’s most respected writers.
“Like a nostalgic progenitor bestowing his wealth of life experience upon a younger generation, Saramago digs deep into his peasant roots to sketch a rough outline of the little boy who would become one of the greatest Portuguese-language writers”—Portland Oregonian
Synopsis
Heartfelt, affecting, and wise, the essay collection The Road to San Giovanni offers Italo Calvinos reflections on his own life and work in five elegant "memory exercises."
Synopsis
Assembled and published posthumously, The Road to San Giovanni offers Calvinos reflections on his own life and work. These five elegant “memory exercises” provide a varied and revealing portrait of a writer who was deeply wary of autobiography: from the title essays moving evocation of the authors relationship with his father — couched in a lyrical sketch of Calvinos childhood home — to a charming account of teenage years spent in the glow of the cinema screen, to Calvinos declaration of purpose as a writer in the final essays visionary fragments. Heartfelt, affecting, and wise, The Road to San Giovanni will appeal to Calvinos existing fans and win new ones.
Synopsis
“In each other’s presence we became mute, would walk in silence side by side along the road to San Giovanni. To my father’s mind, words must serve as confirmations of things, and as signs of possession; to mine, they were foretastes of things barely glimpsed, not possessed, presumed.” —from
The Road to San Giovanni
In these autobiographical essays, published after Italo Calvino’s death, the intellectually vibrant writer not only reflects on his own past, but also inquires into the very workings of memory itself. From the title essay’s lyrical evocation of the author’s relationship with his father, and a charming account of teenage years spent in the glow of the cinema screen, to Calvino’s reminiscences of his experiences in the Italian Resistance during World War II and of his years in Paris, to his declaration of purpose as a writer in the final essay’s visionary fragments, these five “memory exercises” are heartfelt, affecting, and wise.
“Brimming with Calvino’s beautifully crafted prose, dry humor, and continual questioning . . . Calvino has been very well served by his translator, Tim Parks.” —Observer
About the Author
ITALO CALVINO’s superb storytelling gifts earned him international renown and a reputation as “one of the world's best fabulists” (New York Times Book Review). He is the author of numerous works of fiction, as well as essays, criticism, and literary anthologies. Born in Cuba in 1923, Calvino was raised in Italy, where he lived most of his life. At the time of his death, in Siena in 1985, he was the most translated contemporary Italian writer.
Table of Contents
Contents
Skins Beneath the Skin 1
Encapsulations 28
His Name Was Wedontdothat 64
How I Learned Fear 105
Guests at Table 160
At and Below the Surface 202
The Third Hunger 248
How I Became a Smoker 292 Berlin Air 344
While Cancer, Soundless 367
The Wedding Gifts I Received 395