The new book by Günter Grass is an autobiographical narrative. The story he unfolds is set between two of the central historical events of the 20th century, the outbreak of the Second World War on 1September 1939, for Grass the end of his childhood, and the Book Fair of October 1959, which saw one of the most important works of post-war German literature, his novel The Tin Drum, become a world bestseller. In his quest to discover the young man he was then, Grass exposes his memories like an archaeologist, layer by layer.

He brings his personal experience to light without reservation – war and captivity, the post- war years as a farm labourer, in the mines, at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, his first literary successes. A portrait of the author as a young man emerges from the ever new succession of stories revealed by the »onion of memory«. Beim Häuten der Zwiebel is a work of literary research by an author who has never failed to take a stand, raising his voice and bearing witness.