Numbered and signed by the author.

Grass, Günter ~ Nobel Prize Lecture 1999 : Signed By The Author.

Limited Edition : Oak Tree Fine Press, Fyfield : 2009

Tall thin 8vo., dark-grey cloth backed linen boards, lettered in gilt to backstrip; outer edges untrimmed; in the original matching grey cloth slipcase; decorative endpaper illustration of a rat reading by Grass; frontispiece wood engraving of the author by Abigail Rorer; Fine. Limited edition, one just 150 copies hand numbered and signed by the author. This copy no. '45'. The publication is dedicated to children living with HIV/AIDS. Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 for his outstanding achievements as a writer “whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history”. This prize lecture was given by the author at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 7th December 1999, and is here translated from the German by Michael Henry Heim. Grass, his publisher said, was due at the dentist when the news came through from Stockholm. During the day, journalists crowded outside Mr Grass’s workshop in Lübeck. He told the reporters that he was very happy, and that Heinrich Böll, the last German who was awarded the Nobel Prize, would also have been very happy too, he thought. (nobelprize.org) Referring in particular to his groundbreaking work The Tin Drum, the Secretary of the Swedish Academy claimed: “The fact that you are receiving the 20th century's last Nobel Literature Prize…[gives] ample proof of your uncanny ability to impersonate the voices of the thoughtless, all those bewitched by the hopes of politics and technology, rendered stupid by the great perspectives.” He goes on “your style… tells us that we shall not be in a hurry, either when dealing with the past, or when dealing with the future. You have shown that as long as Literature remembers what people hasten to forget, it remains a power to be reckoned with.” A fine example.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Fine