NOVEL BY GRASS CENSORED

As it was reported yesterday, Günter Grass’ novel, The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) appeared in Hungarian in a mutilated version this spring, too.

The novel of the special guest of the Hungarian book festival has been published by Európa Publishing House but a part of the novel describing the looting Soviets in Danzig (about twenty lines) was left out from the Hungarfian version.

Levente Osztovits, director has recognized the mistake while Gyula Hernádi, author said such ’mistakes’ had been typical in the period of Communism. Jan Menkens, law expert of Steidl Verlag said Mr Grass ’would not be happy’ to get to know the fact of the mutilated Hungarian translation.

Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó