Critical Praise

"In a novel that has already attracted attention on both sides of the Atlantic, Nobelist Grass employs a compelling vehicle for his latest excursion into Germany's tortured past . . . This is one of Grass's most accessible novels, and the closing chapters about the rescue of [the narrator's] mother are simply riveting . . . A writer who refuses to avert his eyes from unpleasant truths, [Grass] remains an eloquent explorer of his country's troubled 20th-century history."

——Publishers Weekly

"What was it we lived through? What happened? Forty years of reimagining recent German history [has brought] Grass to these questions. And to the uncertain and interesting voice of his latest narrator, who [here describes] an unparalleled sea disaster he was present at but unaware of, because his mother was giving birth to him. A metaphor fabricated and ironic, Crabwalk takes us not only back into the Hitler years but also into depths of the present, which are Grass's real story."

——The Washington Post

"Grass is lucid, sardonic, and unsparing as always."

——Kirkus Reviews

"This work hovers in that realm between fact and fiction . . . [Shines] a revealing light on German society, east and west, since the war."

——Library Journal