Günter Grass was a German novelist, poet, playwright, and graphic artist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. A prominent figure of post-war German literature, he is widely regarded for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. Grass was a vocal social critic and a supporter of the Social Democratic Party, often involving himself in political debates in Germany. His later life was marked by controversy, particularly after his 2006 admission that he had served in the Waffen-SS as a teenager during World War II.