Momo, also known as The Grey Gentlemen or The Men in Grey, is a fantasy novel by Michael Ende, published in 1973. It is about the concept of time and how it is used by humans in modern societies. The book won the German Youth Literature Award in 1974. The full title in German (Momo oder Die seltsame Geschichte von den Zeit-Dieben und von dem Kind, das den Menschen die gestohlene Zeit zurückbrachte) translates to Momo, or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to the people.
In the ruins of an amphitheatre just outside an unnamed city lives Momo, a little girl of mysterious origin. When asked, she replies, "As far as I remember, I've always been around." She is remarkable in the neighbourhood because she has the extraordinary ability to listen. By simply being with people and listening to them, she can help them find answers to their problems, make up with each other, and think of fun games. The advice given to people "go and see Momo!" has become a household phrase and Momo makes many friends, especially an honest, silent street-cleaner, Beppo, and a poetic, extroverted tour guide, Gigi (Guido in some translations).
This pleasant atmosphere is spoiled by the arrival of the Men in Grey, eventually revealed as a species of paranormal parasites stealing the time of humans. These grey-clad, grey-skinned bald men present themselves as representatives of the Timesavings Bank and promote the idea of "timesaving" among the population: supposedly, time can be deposited in the Bank and returned to the client later with interest. After encountering the Men in Grey, people are made to forget all about them, but not about the resolution to save as much time as possible for later use.
Gradually, the sinister influence of the Men in Grey affects the whole city: life becomes sterile, devoid of all things considered time-wasting, like social activities, recreation, art, imagination, or sleeping. Buildings and clothing are made exactly the same for everyone, and the rhythms of life become hectic. In reality, the more time people save, the less they have; the time they save is actually lost to them, consumed by the Men in Grey in the form of cigars made from the dried petals of the hour-lilies that represent time. Without these cigars, the Men in Grey cannot exist.
Momo, however, is a wrench in the plans of the Men in Grey, thanks to her special personality. Various plans to deal with her directly fail, so the Men in Grey start targeting her friends instead. When everyone else has fallen under the influence of the Men in Grey in one way or another, Momo meets Cassiopeia, a tortoise who can communicate through writing on her shell and can see thirty minutes into the future. Cassiopeia leads Momo to the administrator of Time, Master Secundus Minutius Hora, where they form a plan to defeat the Men in Grey.
Hora stops time, freezing everyone except the Men in Grey, Cassiopeia and Momo, thanks to one last hour-lily he has given her. With their supply flow cut off, all the Men in Grey rush to their underground lair, where Momo follows. She observes as they decimate their own number in order to stretch their stockpile of time as far as possible. With the advice of Cassiopeia and by using the hour-lily, Momo is able to shut the door to the vault where the stolen lilies are kept. Now facing extinction as soon as their cigars are consumed, the few remaining Men in Grey pursue Momo, perishing one by one. The last Man in Grey finally begs her to give him the hour-lily so that he can open the vault. When she refuses, he too vanishes, remarking that "it is good it is over".
Using the last minute she has before her hour-lily crumbles, Momo opens the vault again, releasing the millions of hour-lilies stored within. The stolen time returns to its proper owners, causing time to start again (without people knowing it had ever halted). Momo is reunited with her friends, while Master Hora rejoices together with Cassiopeia.
The main theme of Momo can be seen as a criticism of consumerism and stress. It describes the personal and social losses produced by unnecessary consumption, and the danger to be driven by a hidden interest group with enough power to induce people into this lifestyle. Michael Ende has also stated to have had the concept of demurrage currency in mind when writing Momo.
Childhood is also an important subject in many of Ende's books. In Momo it is used to offer contrast with the adult society. As children have "all the time in the world", they are a difficult target for the Men in Grey: children cannot be convinced that their games are time-wasting. The author uses a mockery of Barbie dolls and other expensive toys as symbols to show how anyone can be persuaded, even indirectly, into consumerism.
Robert N. Peck described that Momo has five principal elements: taking time, listening, imagining, persons and music.
An article by philosopher David Loy and literature professor Linda Goodhew called Momo "one of the most remarkable novels of the late twentieth century". They further state that: "One of the most amazing things about Momo is that it was published in 1973. Since then, the temporal nightmare it depicts has become our reality."
Ende himself has said that "Momo is a tribute of gratitude to Italy and also a declaration of love," indicating that the author idealized the Italian way of life. Loy and Goodhew suggested that Ende's perspective on time coincided with his interest in Buddhism and that for example the deliberately slow character of Beppo might be regarded as a Zen master, even though Ende wrote the book long before his visits to Japan.
When the book was published in the U.S. in 1985, Natalie Babbit from The Washington Post commented: "Is it a children's book? Not here in America." Momo was republished by Puffin Press on January 19, 2009.
Then Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland, in his New Year Address to the nation on January 1, 1997, referenced Ende's book and its plot: "People are persuaded to save time by eliminating everything not useful. One of the people so influenced cuts out his girlfriend, sells his pet, stops singing, reading and visiting friends. In this way he will supposedly become an efficient man getting something out of life. What is strange is that he is in a greater hurry than ever. The saved-up time disappearsâÂÂand he never sees it again." Prime Minister Jagland went on to say that to many people, time has become the scarcest resource of all, contrary to their attempt at saving as much of it as possible.
Momo has been translated into various languages including Arabic, Asturian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mongolian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Sinhalese.
The original English translation The Grey Gentlemen by Frances Lobb was published in 1974. A second English translation, Momo, was published in 1984. A newly translated edition, translated by Lucas Swirner and illustrated by Marcel Dzama, was released in the US by McSweeney's in August 2013, in celebration of the book's fortieth anniversary. The McSweeney edition was scheduled for a new release in January 2017.
The Spanish translation Momo, o la extraña historia de los ladrones del tiempo y la niña que devolvió el tiempo a los hombres was made by Susana Constante in 1978 for Ediciones Alfaguara: it was a great success in Spain and Latin America, having dozens of reprints since.
The Persian translation was published several times, initially in 1980, by Zarrin Publishers in Tehran. At the time of publication, it enjoyed great popularity in Iran, but lapsed out of print in 1992. This, along with a stop in publishing other children's books by German and other European writers, is part of an ongoing trend in publishing American and English children's fiction in that country.
The film version, a German production featuring an international cast, was released in 2025.