Crabwalk

Günter Grass · 1927–2015 · Germany

Originally Im Krebsgang (German)

Why it matters

A journalist reckons with his mother's survival of the Wilhelm Gustloff's sinking, the deadliest maritime disaster in history, and his own son's drift into neo-Nazi obsession with German wartime suffering. Grass confronts a long taboo subject late in his career.

At a glance

A tight, novella-length structure nonetheless layers three generations of family history.