Marcel Reich-Ranicki (b. 1920) is one of the most influential literary critics in Germany, a columnist for major newspapers, the host of popular literary programs on television, and the author of many articles and books about German literature. In his memoirs, the author, a Jew by nationality, talks about his childhood first in Poland and then in Germany, about deportation, about the Warsaw ghetto, where his parents died, and he miraculously managed to survive, about emigration from socialist Poland to West Germany and his career literary critic. He reflects on life, on the Jewish question and German wine, on literature and theater, on the people with whom he had to communicate. The reader will find here interesting touches to the portraits of many famous German writers (G. Bell, G. Grass, J. Bachmann, W. Keppen, etc.), as well as details of literary life in Poland and Germany in the 2nd half. XX century.