Tributes writer Günter Grass, a man of controversy

"It's very sad. A true giant, an inspiring and a friend. Play the drum for him, little Oskar."

Contested, but internationally recognized German writer Günter Grass, died of "infection" this April 13 at the age of 87 in a clinic in Lübeck, northern Germany.

Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, his masterpiece remains "The Tin Drum" he wrote in 1959: the story of a little boy, Oskar, who decides to refuse to grow up and the small drum resonates jolts of Nazism. Adapted to film, the film won a Palme d'Or and an Oscar in 1979 and 1980.

Moral conscience of post Nazi Germany, Günter Grass made headlines in 2012 with his poem against Israel entitled "What Must Be Said"

"Why do I say that now [...] that atomic power Israel threatens the already fragile world peace? Because it must be said that might be too late tomorrow. "

Leftist, time member of the SPD, Günter Grass had argued the case of Iran and sparked controversy, which does not prevent today German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the head of diplomacy to greet his " artistic commitment, political and social "

"It was a father figure who has upset many people, especially those who, after 1945, wanted to forget their past as quickly as possible," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Günter Grass became persona non grata in Israel there are three years old, had revealed in his autobiography "onion peels," in 2006, having been part of the Hitler Youth and he was drafted into the Waffen SS, he had hitherto always ignored.

Tributes worldwide

Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize Lech Walesa hailed "a great intellectual who loved Gdansk," his hometown:

"We had a similar vision of the world, Europe, Poland. We have seen the future rather pink, drawing lessons from a bad past between Germans and Poles. "

German President Joachim Gauck honored the memory of a writer whose work, "impressive mirror of our country", "is an immutable part of its artistic and cultural heritage."

For the Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, another Nobel Prize in Literature, "The Tin Drum was (...) the beginning of a new language."

"We were friends and we thought," for his part said the Hungarian writer and Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz.

"It's very sad. A true giant, an inspiring and a friend. Drumming for him, little Oskar, "said on his Twitter account the British writer Salman Rushdie.