Akademie der Künste acquires unknown manuscript of "The Tin Drum" by Günter Grass

The Akademie der Künste in Berlin has acquired the typewritten manuscript of Günter Grass's most important novel "The Tin Drum", a previously unknown notebook from 1957, and 45 additional manuscripts including poems. The acquisition was funded by the Kulturstiftung der Länder with €29,833. The collection provides new sources for Grass's Paris period (1956–1960) and the genesis of "The Tin Drum". The typescript contains versions of 40 chapters of the 1959 novel, including variants of the famous first chapter "The Wide Skirt". The 1957 notebook includes fragments of the play "Noch zehn Minuten bis Buffalo" and notes on "The Tin Drum". The collection comes from British literary scholar and Grass researcher John Reddick, who had been asked by Grass in the late 1960s to collect the Paris writings. Grass gave part to the Literaturarchiv Sulzbach-Rosenberg and allowed Reddick to keep the rest, which he has now offered to the Akademie der Künste. Grass received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 and was president of the Akademie der Künste (West) from 1983 to 1986.