The Flounder - Günter Grass

The Flounder is a 1977 novel by the German writer Günter Grass. It is loosely based on the fairy tale "The Fisherman and His Wife".

Grass said, "The Flounder is about women and food, but it is also about women and war, including what women have done against war – unfortunately, mostly silence." Regarding his view on the human sexes and its influence on the novel, Grass said, "Most women who read the book all the way through like it. Those in the women's liberation movement who say there is no difference between men and women don't like it. I like the difference – I hate those who don't like the difference between men and women."

The key theme of the book is of woman's historical contributions in both fact and fiction, ranging from the early goddesses of the matriarchial Stone Age society by the Vistula River, to the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, "The Fisherman and His Wife", to the novel’s contemporary "women’s' libbers" (as phrased in the English translation). The Flounder plays a central role as agent and provocateur in the cause of either sex throughout.

Grass came up with the idea for the book while campaigning in the late 1960s for the politician Willy Brandt. He said that during the campaign, he was "constantly being bombarded by second-hand language." He got an urge to write what would become The Flounder, and took five years to complete the novel.

He rewrote the more than 500-page novel three times. Grass has said his structure of nine chapters was deliberate, to "pay homage to the nine months of pregnancy." At the same time, he has acknowledged criticizing some aspects of radical feminism.