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Paul Celan: A Life
A luminous, groundbreaking biography of one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century, best...
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A luminous, groundbreaking biography of one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century, best known for the poem "Deathfugue."
Paul Celan (1920-1970) was recognized as the greatest poet of the German language shortly before his tragic death just shy of his fiftieth birthday, when he drowned himself in the Seine. He described his "Todesfuge" ("Deathfugue") as a "tombstone" for his mother, who perished in the Holocaust. Celan's work is often viewed as a rejoinder to Theodor Adorno's dictum that it was barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz. While the commentary on Celan's contributions to poetics and Holocaust literature is voluminous, little has been written about his life itself. Anna Arno provides the definitive biography. Paul Celan: A Life follows the poet from his birthplace, Czernowitz (today Chernivtsi, Ukraine), to Bucharest, where he was part of an important circle of Surrealists; then on to Vienna, where he met and fell in love with Ingeborg Bachmann; and finally to Paris. Although in his final years he was haunted by bouts of mental illness, his life cannot be defined by its implosion. Paul Celan was an ardent, inveterate romantic whose many meaningful relationships left their mark on his poetry. He also cultivated intense, often fraught dialogues with such thinkers as René Char, Yves Bonnefoy, and Martin Heidegger. Drawing upon a linguistically wide range of archival sources and the most up-to-date research, Arno presents a complete picture of Celan's life. Here is the essential story of a towering figure in modern poetry.Author: Anna Arno
Publisher: Belknap Press
Published: 06/09/2026
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.75lbs
Size: 9.51h x 6.39w x 1.45d
ISBN: 9780674298637
Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2026
Publishers Weekly 06/01/2026
Library Journal 05/22/2026 pg. 1
About the Author
Arno, Anna: - Anna Arno is the author of biographies of the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the Polish writer and activist Konstanty Jeleński. She has also published three short story collections in Polish--Okna [Windows], Ten kraj [This Land], and Cialo [The Body].
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