Description
Book SynopsisA critical biography of Paul Celan, a German-speaking East European Jew who was one of Europe's most compelling postwar poets. It tells the story of his life, offers new translations of his poems, and illuminates the connection between Celan's lived experience and his poetry.
Trade ReviewNominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award Chosen as a best book of 1995 by
Village Voice Chosen as a best book of 1995 by the
Times Literary Supplement Chosen as a best book of 1995 by the
Philadelphia Inquirer Chosen as a best book of 1995 by
Choice magazine
"An important book. Celan is indeed a very great poet, Felstiner’s English translations of the poems are remarkably accurate and effective, and the argument of the book is both persuasive and informative."—Cyrus Hamlin, Yale University
"I have been eagerly awaiting this book. John Felstiner’s brilliant and illuminating talks and articles about Celan, with the translations of his poems which they incorporate, have been of great interest to me for the past several years; and now we are provided with the comprehensive study toward which these were working. Felstiner is that increasingly rare thing, a critic who loves his subjects and enables readers to share that love by guiding them into a deeper understanding of their resonances. This is especially valuable in the case of Celan, whose work is at once so inward and such a quintessential artifact of history."—Denise Levertov
"Felstiner’s book is, on every level, superb: it is essential to anyone interested in the work of one of the greatest and most moving Jewish poets of our turbulent time."—Elie Wiesel, Boston University
"Felstiner has done the impossible--integrated Celan’s life and poetry without stinting either. The full weight and agony of the poet’s fate as Jew and survivor are captured. Felstiner translates with care and caring the major poems and makes them accessible by a commentary that scrupulously records the occasions to which they are linked and the literary allusions they encode. The scholar becomes a poet writing about the greatest of the post-war German poets."—Geoffrey Hartman, Yale University
"This is an absolutely essential study of one of the genuinely great, and in so many ways enigmatic, poets of our time, a literary biography in the best sense, informative and penetratingly interpretive. Felstiner’s fine translations of Celan’s often very difficult poetry arise from, and are worked seamlessly into, the stuff of his chronicle, and they are of immense value in their own right. A book of this kind has been long overdue: this authoritative instance of it now appears to have been well worth waiting for."—John Hollander
