Siegfried Lenz is one of West Germany's foremost writers, ranking in popularity as well as critical esteem with Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll. In the United States, his stature is based primarily on the novel The German Lesson-a modern classic reissued by New Directions in 1986-but he is also considered a master of the short story, perhaps the best of his postwar generation. The Selected Stories of Siegfried Lenz, edited and translated by Breon Mitchell, is the first comprehensive gathering of the writer's short fiction ever to appear in English. In tone, the stories range from compassionate reflections on the human condition to gentle, humorous tales of prewar country life, to high comedy as well as spare, direct narratives. The twenty-six stories-roughly a third of Lenz's total-are grouped as "Tales of Our Times," "Tales from the Village," and "German Lessons."
