Simultaneidade indissolúvel: a escrita autobiográfica de Günter Grass

Abstract

Günter Grass's Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (2006) was theme of important literary debates in Germany, focused on Grass’ polemical revelation of his enlistment in the Waffen-SS. Grass’ confession raised not only ethical controversy, but also attempts of reexamination of his literature; according to some scholars, this truth was at the very core of the strategies chosen by him for the elaboration of his autobiographical narrative. This last aspect will be the central point of our discussion, since it gives us the opportunity of analyzing the contact between fictional and autobiographical discourses in Grass’ narrative. Our aim is to observe how Grass explores the autobiographical genre and problematizes the specificities of his writing, with special attention to the transit between fact and fiction and the ambiguities resulted from it. As it is our intention to confirm, his manipulation of categories of factual truth and fictional representation, in the sense of its indetermination, is decisive for the elaboration of the writer's memorabilia.