Dog Years

Günter Grass · 1927–2015 · Germany

Originally Hundejahre (German)

Why it matters

Two boyhood friends, one gentile and one part-Jewish, drift into complicity and betrayal against Danzig's Nazi rise, tracked partly through the pedigree of a real dog that ends up in Hitler's kennel. The sprawling third panel closing Grass's Danzig Trilogy.

At a glance

Three interlocking narrators and dense wordplay make this the trilogy's most demanding volume.