1 1

Goldsboro Books

Cat and Mouse

Cat and Mouse

Cat and Mouse

by Günter Grass

Publisher Secker & Warburg

Released:

£125.00
£125.00
Sale Sold out
Rendering loop-subscriptions
Rendering loop-subscriptions

Available from:

Limited Edition Copies

View full details

About the book

To compensate for his unusually large Adam's apple - source of both discomfort and distress - fourteen year old Joachim Mahlke turns himself into athlete and ace diver. Soon he is known to his peers and his nation as 'The Great Mahlke'.

But to his enemies, he remains a target. He is different and doomed in a country scarred by the war.

Cat and Mouse was first published in 1961, two years after Gunter Grass' controversial and applauded masterpiece, The Tin Drum.

Once again Grass turns his attention on Danzig. With a subtle blend of humour and power, Cat and Mouse ostensibly relates the rise of Mahlke from clown to hero. But Mahlke's outlandish antics hide the darkness at the heart of a nation torn by Nazi violence, the war and its aftermath.

About the Author

Günter Grass

Günter Grass was a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.


Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to his birthplace of Danzig.


Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum, a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Part of Germany. The Tin Drum was adapted as a film of the same name, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. In 1999, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".

  • Professionally Packed

    All of our books that have a dust wrapper are covered in clear protective, removable film and are packed professionally in bubble wrap and a box for shipping so that they reach you in perfect condition.

  • Book Condition & Notes

    Very good first edition in dust-jacket. Some foxing and yellowing to pages and jacket, with minor tears to the jacket. This book is located in our Brighton store, and may take longer for delivery.

Journal & Events

1 4