Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs: Correspondence »

PAUL CELAN was born Paul Ancel of a Jewish family in Romania in 1920. In 1942 his parents were deported and died in an extermination camp. Celan escaped but was in a labour camp until 1944. In 1948 he settled in Paris, where he took up the study of German literature and became a lecturer at the Ecole Normale Superieur. Paris remained his home until his suicide by drowning in 1970.

Here are the letters between Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, and the great German-speaking poet Paul Celan (1920-1970). Their correspondence lasted from 1954 until Celan's death by suicide. Sachs died the day Celan was buried.

Library Journal

Celan, though he never lived in Germany, gave German poetry one of its distinctive voices following World War II. Sachs, a generation older than he, escaped from Germany to Sweden prior to the war, continued writing in German, and went on to win the Nobel Prize. Both were transformed by the grief caused by the Nazi experience, which led to the loss of close and dear relatives. Their correspondence, presented in this unique collection of 126 pieces extending over a 16-year period starting in 1954, reveals some sadness but a distinct sense of survivorhood. Sachs's "Chorus of the Orphans" was the trigger that moved Celan to write to her. The exchanges that followed were a testimony to their mutual reverence for, and knowledge of, each other's "things." This first English edition includes an extensive editorial notes section and a chronological table juxtaposing the events of their two lives. A valuable addition to comprehensive literature collections. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y.