Of All That Ends
Published on 7. December 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-78470-368-4 (ISBN)
Description
The final work of Nobel Prize-winning writer Guenter Grass - a witty and elegiac series of meditations on writing, growing old, and the world.
Suddenly, in spite of the trials of old age, and with the end in sight, everything seems possible again: love letters, soliloquies, scenes of jealousy, swan songs, social satire, and moments of happiness.
Only an ageing artist who had once more cheated death could get to work with such wisdom, defiance and wit. A wealth of touching stories is condensed into artful miniatures. In a striking interplay of poetry, lyric prose and drawings, Grass creates his final, major work of art.
A moving farewell gift, a sensual, melancholy summation of a life fully lived.
Suddenly, in spite of the trials of old age, and with the end in sight, everything seems possible again: love letters, soliloquies, scenes of jealousy, swan songs, social satire, and moments of happiness.
Only an ageing artist who had once more cheated death could get to work with such wisdom, defiance and wit. A wealth of touching stories is condensed into artful miniatures. In a striking interplay of poetry, lyric prose and drawings, Grass creates his final, major work of art.
A moving farewell gift, a sensual, melancholy summation of a life fully lived.
Reviews / Votes
As subtle and as delicate as the many feathers depicted through its pages, Of All That Ends is a glorious gift, a final salute true to the singular creativity of the most human, and humane, of artists. * Irish Times * There is a lovely diversity to these pieces... His intelligence and intellectual engagement remain fiercely undimmed. -- Catherine Taylor * Financial Times * This beautiful, ironic and often funny final collage of asides and meditations sums up the fabulist's genius. -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times, Book of the Year * Autumnal, elegiac and tinged with a twilight charm -- Boyd Tonkin * The Arts Desk * Of All That Ends radiates a burst of his primitive energy and his subtle shrewdness, using words and pencil lines as a remedy, an antidote to the factual world that we objectify and iconise... Laced with black humour. -- Julian Evans * Daily Telegraph * Grass' writing...is uncluttered and haunting... Tiny snapshots of morality more insightful than most novels could dream of, forming a work of real emotional substance. A fitting requiem for a true great. * UK Press Syndication * A melancholic anthology of musings, poems, and sketches, delicate in both form and content as they trace the edges of ageing, death and the world we live in. -- Michael Anderson * Irish Examiner *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
169 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78470-368-4 (9781784703684)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Persons
Guenter Grass (1927-2015) was Germany's most celebrated post-war writer. He was a creative artist of remarkable versatility: novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, graphic artist. Grass's first novel, The Tin Drum, is widely regarded as one of the finest novels of the twentieth century, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.