Nadie sabra leer nuestro presente sin haber leido El tambor de hojalata. Una obra cumbre de la literatura contemporanea, la novela emblematica del Premio Nobel Gunter Grass. Oskar Matzerath, uno de los personajes literarios mas entranables de nuestro tiempo, es un nino que se resiste a crecer porque la sociedad pequenoburguesa del nazismo no le gusta. El dia de su tercer cumpleanos es una fecha determinante en su vida. No solo es el dia en que toma la decision de dejar de crecer, sino que recibe su primer tambor de hojalata, objeto que se convertira en su companero inseparable para el resto de sus dias. La critica mordaz, la ironia despiadada, el espectacular sentido del humor y la libertad creadora con que Gunter Grass construye esta novela la convierten en una de las grandes obras de la historia de la literatura. Publicada en 1959, cosecho un exito inmediato e inauguro la nueva literatura alemana. Medio siglo despues, la fascinacion que despierta no ha terminado. Oskar Matzerath sigue redoblando y su redoble continua estremeciendo. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

The Tin Drum, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, was published in Ralph Manheim’s outstanding translation in 1959. It became a runaway bestseller and catapulted its young author to the forefront of world literature. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, along with Grass’s publishers all over the world, is bringing out a new translation of this classic novel. Breon Mitchell, acclaimed translator and scholar, has drawn from many sources: from a wealth of detailed scholarship; from a wide range of newly-available reference works; and from the author himself. The result is a translation that is more faithful to Grass’s style and rhythm, restores omissions, and reflects more fully the complexity of the original work. After fifty years, THE TIN DRUM has, if anything, gained in power and relevance. All of Grass’s amazing evocations are still there, and still amazing: Oskar Matzerath, the indomitable drummer; his grandmother, Anna Koljaiczek; his mother, Agnes; Alfred Matzerath and Jan Bronski, his presumptive fathers; Oskar’s midget friends–Bebra, the great circus master and Roswitha Raguna, the famous somnambulist; Sister Scholastica and Sister Agatha, the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke; the Greffs, the Schefflers, Herr Fajngold, all Kashubians, Poles, Germans, and Jews–waiting to be discovered and re-discovered.