Headbirths (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Gunter Grass
- First Published: 1980
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: 1979 and 1980
- Setting: Germany and Asia
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Children, Traveling or travelers, Racism, 1980’s, Asia or Asians, Nationalism, Germany or German people, Birth control
- Locales: Asia, Germany
Characters Discussed
The narrator, probably Günter Grass himself, born in 1927 in Danzig. The first-person narrator is on a sponsored lecture tour of China and India with his wife, Ute. A sympathetic observer, he nevertheless retains his commitment to German affairs and to the coming elections. The crowds in Shanghai lead him to imagine a grotesque world in which the Germans, in danger of dying out according to alarmist, patriotic politicians at home, would be as numerous as the Chinese. He finds a parallel between the stultification of China through the cultural revolution...
[The entire page is 820 words long]
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