PrintApril 10, 2012
Chutzpah in the Grass
I was in Zurich airport returning from a school trip to Europe and picked up the local newspaper Tages-Anzeiger to read on the plane. A small blurb on the front page mentioned a new controversy concerning the German Nobel Prize laureate Gunther Grass, author of The Tin Drum. Before now, Grass was controversial not so much for his leftist dogmatism, but his 2006, post-Nobel admission that he had served in the infamous Waffen SS during World War II.
Curious, I flipped to the culture and business section (in Switzerland I guess they are more or less the same thing) and on page 33 of the newspaper found a photo of the portly, bespectacled author, garbed in brown sweater and tweed jacket, pipe in hand, his drooping grey mustache and sagging jowls providing a serious, yet grandfatherly air. The headline announced that the 84 year-old Grass wanted to break taboos, no matter what they are. (Here is a slightly different updated version of the print...(Read Full Article)
