My Broken Love: Gunter Grass in India and Bangladesh

In 1975 when the German novelist Gunter Grass, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1999, visited India for the first time, he singled out Calcutta as a city he would definitely return to. The abject poverty in which many in Calcutta lived, juxtaposed with the throbbing vitality of the city and the tremendous will of the people to strive against the odds, evoked in Grass a strange mixture of attraction and disgust, but also left him utterly fascinated. Grass did return to Calcutta eleven years later, this time with his wife Ute, to live there for a year as ordinary residents of the city. Even though the couple eventually spent only a few months there, the experience left a lasting impression on Grass, Ute and the people who came in contact with them. Calcutta affected Grass in some indefinable but significant way, just as he had touched the lives of many through the friendships he struck up, his support of social causes, and his efforts to promote the role of the creative artist in politics. The encounter also resulted in Zunge zeigen (Show Your Tongue), a diary published in 1989, in which Grass approached Indian reality through prose, verse and a series of black-and –white sketches. My Broken Love is a rich collection of all the material available on Gunter Grass’ sojourn in Calcutta and his other visits to India and Bangladesh. In addition to Grass’ own essays, lectures and references regarding India, there are articles, interviews, anecdotes, impressions and criticisms—by close friends, associates and journalists—all of which provide a unique insight into one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Compiled by Martin Kampchen, the collection also includes over twenty photographs and sketches by Grass himself.