A short novel set in 1647, near the end of the Thirty Years' War. A group of German poets and writers, led by Simon Dach and others, gather at an inn in Telgte, hoping to speak for their ruined country through its language. They read their work, argue over style and politics, and share scarce food while armies move through the land. Grass uses this imagined meeting to reflect on the role of writers in times of catastrophe, and he echoed a postwar German literary group in doing so.