"Sono stato presente anno dopo anno, dando il cambio a me stesso". I travestimenti dell'io in "Mein Jahrhundert" di Günter Grass

This paper deals with Grass’ collection of one hundred short stories entitled Mein Jahrhundert (1999). By means of a multiplicity of voices and points of view the author goes over the twentieth century, with particular attention to German events, offering his readers a kaleido¬scope of “ordinary” figures with their microhistories, that have found no place in the official historiography. Starting from these premises, the essay intends to bring into focus the relationship conceived by Grass between the historical facts with their well-known protagonists and the literary narration, which gives voice to forgotten human des¬tinies. The act of preserving memory against oblivion is the red thread that unites all the short stories.