Gdańsk-born writer Gunter Grass dies
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
13.04.2015 11:57
Nobel Prize-winning German writer Gunter Grass died on Monday of a lung infection, aged 87.
Gunter Grass. Photo: PAP
The news was announced in Poland by mayor of Gdańsk Pawel Adamowicz on his Twitter profile.
''The director of the Culture Office has brought us sad news,'' Adamowicz wrote.
''The Nobel Prize-winner and honorary citizen of Gdańsk Gunter Grass passed away this morning.''
Grass was born in 1927 in what was then known internationally as the Free City of Danzig, which had a majority of ethnic Germans.
Nazi Germany annexed the city and occupied Poland in 1939. After the Second World War ethnic Germans were expelled, and the city was officially renamed Gdańsk.
The author's most famous work remains his novel The Tin Drum (1959), the first volume of his so-called Danzig Trilogy.
Grass cultivated close ties with his native city in recent years, attending many cultural events.
There was some controversy in 2006 when the author belatedly revealed that he had served in Hitler's Waffen SS.
However, Grass's Polish biographer Norbert Honsza has repeatedly stressed the author's efforts to further Polish-German reconciliation. (nh)
Source: PAP/Deutsche Welle