November 18, 2002	Monday	Ramazan 12, 1423

NEW DELHI, Nov 17: US President George W. Bush’s threats of war against Iraq are part of a family vendetta straight out of Shakespeare, Nobel prize-winning German novelist Guenter Grass said in an interview.

Grass, speaking to India’s Outlook magazine, said Bush’s aggressive campaign for Iraq’s disarmament was “prompted by hereditary compulsions.”

“He reminds me of one of those characters in Shakespeare’s historical plays whose only ambition perhaps is to stand before his father, the old and departed king, and say, ‘Look, I have completed your task,’” Grass said.

He also accused Bush of pursuing personal financial interests, as his family is “deeply involved in the oil business,” and charged the United States behaved as an “almighty superpower” that “wants to control and direct the rest of the world” but “knows almost nothing” about it.

“I regard this man (Bush) as a danger, a threat to world peace,” Grass said.

Grass, best known for his 1959 novel “The Tin Drum” set against the backdrop of the Third Reich, went from being a member of the Hitler Youth movement to becoming an aggressive advocate for a more humane Germany.

An avowed admirer of Bengali culture, Grass lived in 1986 and 1987 in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata and neighboring Bangladesh.

“I dream of Kolkata often. It is a steady theme in my thoughts,” Grass said in the interview, conducted in Germany.

“I am now 75 years old. If I can manage to find the time and strength, I shall certainly come again.”—AFP