Gunter Grass: My Century

By ELSPETH SANDYS

There can be no writer better qualified to tackle the subject of the 20th century in a series of stories than the German novelist Gunter Grass.

That he has chosen to make those years live, not in depictions of major events, but in details of domestic, sporting and working life, means that his characters, even those who find themselves on the wrong side in history, have a recognisable face; an identifiable humanity.

Grass, holder of the Nobel Prize for Literature, tireless campaigner for human rights, champion of the Left, poet, playwright, essayist, and artist, lived through more than 70 years of the 20th century. Some of the stories are clearly autobiographical. One of the funniest in the collection takes the form of a letter from "Hubertus Vanderbrugge," a scientist specialising in the cloning of embryos, to "Herr Grass," in answer to his criticisms of the cloning programme, and his fears for a future in which fathers seem likely to be made redundant. Vanderbrugge accuses Grass of "a still virulent machismo mania," and urges him to rejoice in the possibility of freedom from the "habitually conflict-ridden act of procreation."

Grass manages to find numerous reasons to smile at human behaviour. Even the stories set in the dark years of the Second World War contain within them the seeds of hope. Not that Grass pulls any punches. His contempt for the nationalist fervour of the brown shirts - "there's a German way of praying, a German way of loving, a German way of hating" - produces some of his most impassioned writing. As does the resurgence of fascist violence in the 80s.

This is a startlingly original collection. Beginning with the Boxer rebellion in China and ending with a street party in Berlin ("the world's beyond saving but it can still party"), it works on many levels - historical, political, sociological - but is first and foremost literature of the highest order. As an introduction to German, and by implication, European, history, it is invaluable. As an insight into the nature of power, and the changes that occur in the human psyche as one belief system crumbles and another takes its place, this overview of the 20th century is nothing short of brilliant. A century of "war with breaks in between" is how Grass' mother, brought back from the dead for the final, hilarious story, describes it. She is equally trenchant about her son's stories: "Some I like ... but others - well, I'd like to cross out certain parts." But she admits to being interested in the next century.

"We'll see what comes of it," she says.

Faber and Faber

$24.95