The Tin Drum presents Hitler’s rise and fall through the eyes of the dwarfish narrator whose magic powers become symbolic of the dark forces dominating the German nation in that period. Like Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, Grass’s novel explores the dark roots of power and creativity. An early advocate of ‘magic realism’, Günter Grass is the most celebrated novelist to appear in post-war Germany. He was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature.