Günter Wilhelm Grass (1927-2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), Grass's early life was marked by significant events. As a teenager, he was drafted into the military and served from late 1944 in the Waffen-SS. After being taken as a prisoner of war by US forces at the end of World War II, he was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s, often revisiting the Danzig of his childhood in his fiction.

Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism and the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, which also includes Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works frequently feature a left-wing political dimension, and he was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Tin Drum was adapted as a film, winning the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 1999, Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Swedish Academy praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history." Grass always identified as a Kashubian and lived in West Germany. His contributions to literature and his "broadened reality" style significantly impacted the portrayal of the political and social climate of Germany during and after World War II.