ALTHOUGH GÜNTER GRASS (b. 1927) was not an entirely unknown entity in the postwar literary scene of the mid-1950s, in which the influential Gruppe 47 played a significant role, it was the publication of his sensational Die Blechtrommel in 1959 (The Tin Drum, 1963; see ch. 1) that made him a household name in his native country as well as among literati abroad. The novel was both praised and reviled and has remained his best-known work; it was ultimately Die Blechtrommel for which Grass was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize (Grass's numerous other prizes are listed in Mertens, Hermes, and Neuhaus) in recognition of a singular literary accomplishment after a catastrophic war with its devastating consequences for intellectual and cultural life: “[It] was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction” (Swedish Academy 1999). The year 1959 has often been declared to be the annus mirabilis of modern postwar (West) German literature, owing to the publication of three significant novels — in addition to Die Blechtrommel, Heinrich Böll's Billiard um halbzehn (Billiards at Half Past Nine, 1961), and Uwe Johnson's Mutmaßungen über Jakob (Speculations about Jacob, 1963) appeared in the same year. Böll (1917–85), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972, and Johnson (1934–84) are no longer alive and hence do not generate the kind of publicity via the public appearances, interviews, readings, and the like that often precede and follow the publication of works of fiction, but the author of Die Blechtrommel has been in the limelight ever since his literary breakthrough.