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Peeling the Onion

By Günter Grass, translated by Michael Henry Heim

Harcourt, June 2007

Günter Grass' memoir "Peeling the Onion," which made waves when the German version hit the market in August 2006, is finally available in English. The book, spanning 20 years of Grass' youth, includes the provocative revelation that he had volunteered for the elite Waffen SS unite in the Nazi army during World War II. Grass, who grew up in what is now the Polish city of Gdansk, has been a prominent leftist and pacifist for many years. Among the Nobel Prize winner's manner works is "The Tin Drum," his first novel, which was published in 1959 and later made into a movie by director Volker Schlöndorff.

Carl Schmitt and the Jews

By Raphael Gross, translated by Joel Golb

University of Wisconsin Press, July 2007

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was a highly influential yet controversial jurist and legal theorist. His Nazi past has shadowed his work, though many supporters claim his anti-Semitism was opportunistic -- a theory that Raphael Gross refutes in his book, now available in English for the first time. He focuses on the "Jewish question" in Schmitt's ideas, asserting that his anti-Semitism was a core element. Gross is director of the Leo Baeck Institute in London and the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt.

The Chess Machine

By Robert Löhr, translated by Anthea Bell

Penguin Press, July 2007

In Vienna's Schönbrunn Castle in 1770, court counselor Wolfgang von Kempelen presents the empress with his latest invention: a chess machine. There's just one catch. The machine is run by a person, Italian dwarf Tibor. Inside the machine, Tibor wins the respect and admiration he had longed for -- until a beautiful noblewoman meets her death in the presence of the machine. Thirty-four year-old novelist Robert Löhr lives and works in Berlin.

Day In Day Out

By Terezia Mora, translated by Michael Henry Heim

Harper Perennial, Sept. 2007

"Day In Day Out," Terezia Mora's debut novel, tells the story of Abel Nema, a linguistically talented Balkan refugee. Abel encounters a collection of quirky characters, including a group of bohemian jazz musicians, a gang of young Gypsies, and frequenters of the local sex bar -- yet even his gift for languages can't fill his inner hollowness. Born in Hungary in 1971, author Terezia Mora moved to Berlin in 1990, where she studied theater and screenwriting.

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