The Duel – The Story of Günter Grass and Marcel Reich-Ranicki

English sample translation by Ruth Martin available

The “forced marriage”, as Günter Grass once called it, began officially on 1 January 1960: On that day, the critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, 39-years-old at the time, discussed the then just 32-year-old author’s novel Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), panning it. And so began the up-and-down relationship – based as much on rivalry as on respect – between these two prominent protagonists of postwar German literature.
 
They had already met once in 1958, in the Warsaw Hotel Bristol – and both of them already had lives behind them: one as a former member of the Waffen-SS, the other as a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto. But what united them both was their great love of German literature and their absolute determination to dedicate the rest of their lives to it.

In colorful and dazzling prose, Volker Weidermann writes about theit mutual dependence, about conflict and closeness, outrage and détente.

At the same time, however, Weidermann expands his brilliant double biography of the two kings of postwar German literature into a grandiose panorama that reflects the history of the 20th century.