SECOND WORLD WAR FICTION. Beginning with the unforgettable words 'Granted: I'm an inmate in a mental institution', "The Tin Drum", the narrative of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. On his third birthday Oskar resolves to stunt his own growth at three feet, and on the same day he receives his first tin drum. Wielding his drum and piercing scream as anarchic weapons, he draws forth memories from the past as well as judgements about the horrors, injustices, and eccentricities he observes through the long nightmare of the Nazi era. After fifty years, "The Tin Drum" has, if anything, gained in power and relevance.