In 1647, as the Thirty Years' War is drawing to its close, a group of poets from all parts of Germany gather at the pilgrimage town of Telgte for the purpose of strengthening the last remaining bond within a divided nation: its language and literature.

Gunter Grass infuses his cast of historic characters with tremendous vitality and authentic detail, displaying his genius for bringing horrendous or comic incident alive. The most flamboyant, ribald, and generous character is a transparent counterpart of Grass Himself: Grimmelshausen, here callled Gelnhausen, subsequently the author of Germany's great baroque novel Simplicissimus, a postwar narrative as representative of its times and as outrageous as Grass's The Tin Drum.