Is Grass the writer inextricably connected with Grass the artist or is the artist autonomous and independent?
A steady and continuing relationship of exchange between the word and the line characterises my creativity. The first instance of such coexistence is, of course, my poetry. Would you believe that the source of many of my lyrics is drawing and design. The first flutter of the lyric I often transcribed in drawings which later gradually took the form of words. Thereafter, the lyric and drawing reinforced and enriched each other, and they dwell side by side in my books of poems. The opposite has also taken place—often I have begun with words and then the words merged into drawings. This alliance of words and art is visible in my prose as well, in novels like The Rat and A Wide Field, in reminiscences like Show Your Tongue and My Century. When I write, the manuscript does not remain confined to words. I break the flow with drawings, designs, figures. In fact, I visualise the constellation of events and characters in my novels with these pictures. These drawings and pictures, with the progre
