Gunter Grass's novel Der Butt is one of his most important and best-known works, and yet it has not received the critical acclaim enjoyed by his other novels, most notably Die Blechtrommel. It is in many ways his most complex work, having at its centre a narrator whose past, spanning millenniaof time through a bizarre procession of female cooks, is no less immediate than his fraught domestic present. It is a novel which impressively demonstrates Grass's ability to hold in vivid balance a multitude of criss-crossing themes and figures. This volume of essays addresses that complexity. It is a collaborative venture, the result of a series of discussions during which key issues and techniques of the novel were explored. The eleven essays present individual perspectives whilst contributing to a general exposition which throws newlight on Grass's artistry and on the interplay of history and sexual warfare which is at the heart of the novel.