Paul Celan (; ; born Paul Antschel; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a German-speaking Romanian poet,

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators before and during World War II ...

, and literary translator. He adopted his pen name (an anagram of the Romanian spelling Ancel) following the war and resided in France from 1949, becoming a naturalized French citizen in 1955. Celan is regarded as one of the most important figures in German-language literature of the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

era and a poet whose verse has gained an immortal place in the literary pantheon. Celan’s poetry, with its many radical poetic and linguistic innovations, is characterized by a complicated and cryptic style that deviates from poetic conventions.

Life

Early life

Celan was born into a German-speaking

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish family in

Cernăuți Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also #Names, other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivt ...

Bukovina Bukovina or ; ; ; ; , ; see also other languages. is a historical region at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. It is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided betwe ...

, a region then part of Romania and earlier part of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...

(when his birthplace was known as Czernowitz). His first home was in the Wassilkogasse in Cernăuți. His father, Leo Antschel, was a

Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

who advocated his son's education in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

at the Jewish school ''Safah Ivriah'' (meaning ''the Hebrew language''). Celan's mother, Friederike (Fritzi) Antschel née Schrager, was an avid reader of

German literature German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy ...

who insisted

Austrian German Austrian German (), Austrian Standard German (ASG), Standard Austrian German (), Austrian High German (), or simply just Austrian (), is the variety of Standard German written and spoken in Austria and South Tyrol. It has the highest prestige ( ...

be the language of the household. In his teens, Celan became active in Jewish

Socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

organizations and fostered support for the Republican cause in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. His earliest known poem is titled ''Mother's Day 1938''.
Celan, Paul. ''Paul Celan:Selections''. University of California Press, 2005, pp 7-16. Paul attended the Liceul Ortodox de Băieți No. 1 (Boys' Orthodox Secondary School No. 1) from 1930 until 1935, Liceul de Băieți No. 2 în Cernăuți (Boys' Secondary School No. 2 in Cernăuți) from 1935 to 1936, followed by the Liceul Marele Voievod Mihai (Great Prince Mihai Preparatory School, now Chernivtsi School No. 5), where he studied from 1936 until graduating in 1938. At this time Celan secretly began to write poetry. In 1938, Celan traveled to

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

, France, to study

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

; the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

precluded his study in Vienna, and Romanian schools were harder to get into due to the newly imposed

Jewish quota A Jewish quota was a discriminatory racial quota designed to limit or deny access for Jews to various institutions. Such quotas were widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries in developed countries and frequently present in higher education, o ...

. His journey to France took him through Berlin as the events of ''

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

'' unfolded, and also introduced him to his uncle, Bruno Schrager, who was later among the French detainees murdered at

Birkenau Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

. Celan returned to Cernăuți in 1939 to study

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

Life during World War II

Following the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

occupation of Bukovina in June 1940, deportations to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

started. A year later, following the reconquest by Romania,

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the then-fascist Romanian regime brought

ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...

s, internment, and

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

(see

Romania in World War II The Kingdom of Romania, under the rule of King Carol II, initially maintained neutrality in World War II. However, fascist political forces, especially the Iron Guard, rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its ...

). On arrival in Cernăuți in July 1941, the German SS ''

Einsatzkommando During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellect ...

'' and their Romanian allies set the city's Great Synagogue on fire. In October, the Romanians deported a large number of Jews after forcing them into a ghetto, where Celan translated

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

sonnets A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...

and continued to write his own poetry. Before the ghetto was dissolved in the fall of that year, Celan was pressed into labor, first clearing the debris of a demolished post office, and then gathering and destroying

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

books. The local mayor, Traian Popovici, strove to mitigate the harsh circumstances, until the governor of Bukovina had the Jews rounded up and deported, starting on a Saturday night in June 1942. Celan hoped to convince his parents to leave the country so as to escape certain persecution. While Celan was away from home, on 21 June 1942, his parents were taken from their home and sent by train to an

internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

Transnistria Governorate The Transnistria Governorate () was a Romanian-administered territory between the Dniester and Southern Bug, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. A Romanian civilian administration governed the territo ...

, where two-thirds of the deportees eventually perished. Celan's father likely perished of

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

and his mother was shot after being exhausted by forced labour. Later that year, after being taken to a labour camp in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, Celan received reports of his parents' deaths. Celan remained imprisoned in a work camp until February 1944, when the Red Army's advance forced the Romanians to abandon the camps, whereupon he returned to Cernăuți shortly before the Soviets returned. There, he worked briefly as a nurse in the mental hospital. Friends from this period recall Celan expressing immense guilt over his separation from his parents, whom he had tried to convince to go into hiding prior to the deportations, shortly before their deaths.

Life after the war

Considering emigration to Palestine, Celan left Cernăuți in 1945 for Bucharest, where he remained until 1947. He was active in the Jewish literary community as both a translator of

Russian literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its Russian diaspora, émigrés, and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different e ...

into Romanian, and as a poet, publishing his work under a variety of pseudonyms. The literary scene of the time was richly populated with surrealists, such as Gellu Naum, Ilarie Voronca, Gherasim Luca, Paul Păun, and Dolfi Trost. It was in this period that Celan developed pseudonyms both for himself and his friends, including the one he took as his pen name. He also met with the poets Rose Ausländer and Immanuel Weissglas, elements of whose works he reused in his poem " Todesfuge", which first appeared as "" ("Death

Tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Arge ...

") in a Romanian translation of May 1947.

Emigration and Paris years

Upon the emergence of the communist regime in Romania at the beginning of 1948, Celan fled Romania for Vienna, Austria. It was there that he befriended

Ingeborg Bachmann Ingeborg Bachmann (; 25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. She is regarded as one of the major voices of German-language literature in the 20th century. In 1963, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature b ...

, who had just completed a dissertation on

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

. Celan, however, found only a ruined city divided between Allied powers and which bore little resemblance to the literary, musical, and cultural mecca it had been as the capital of the

. Furthermore, the urbane, cultured, and sophisticated Viennese Jewish community described by

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig ( ; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world. Zweig was raised in V ...

in '' The World of Yesterday'' had been largely annihilated by the Holocaust in Austria. This is why, like the poet

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...

before him, Celan emigrated to Paris in 1948. In that year his first poetry collection, '' Der Sand aus den Urnen'' ("Sand from the Urns"), was published in Vienna by A. Sexl. His first few years in Paris were marked by intense feelings of loneliness and isolation, as expressed in letters to his colleagues, including his longtime friend from Cernăuți, Petre Solomon. It was also during this time that he exchanged many letters with Diet Kloos, a young singer and anti-Nazi

Dutch Resistance The Dutch resistance () to the History of the Netherlands (1939–1945), German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized as non-violent. The primary organizers were the Communist Party of the Netherlands, C ...

veteran who had witnessed her husband of just a few months being tortured to death. She visited Celan twice in Paris between 1949 and 1951. In 1952, Celan's writing began to gain recognition when he read his poetry on his first reading trip to

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

where he was invited to read at the semiannual meetings of the hugely influential

Group 47 Gruppe 47 (Group 47) was a group of participants in German writers' meetings, invited by Hans Werner Richter between 1947 and 1967. The meetings served the dual goals of literary criticism as well as the promotion of young, unknown authors. In a ...

literary group. At their May meeting he read his poem '' Todesfuge'' ("Death Fugue"), a depiction of concentration camp life. When

, with whom Celan had an affair, won the group's prize instead for her poetry collection ' (''The Extended Hours''), Celan (whose work had received only six votes) said "After the meeting, only six people remembered my name". He did not attend any other meeting of the group. Grave-Paul-Celan

In November 1951, he met the

graphic artist A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming l ...

Gisèle Lestrange, in Paris. He sent her many love letters, influenced by

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

's correspondence with

Milena Jesenská Milena Jesenská (; 10 August 1896 – 17 May 1944) was a Czech Republic, Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator. She is noted for her correspondence with the author Franz Kafka and was one of the first to translate his work from the ...

and

Felice Bauer Felice Bauer (18 November 1887 – 15 October 1960) was a fiancée of Franz Kafka, whose letters to her were published as ''Letters to Felice''. Early life Felice Bauer was born in Neustadt in Upper Silesia Province, Upper Silesia (today ...

. They married on 21 December 1952, despite the opposition of her aristocratic family. During the following 18 years they wrote over 700 letters; Celan's active correspondents also included Hermann Lenz and his wife Hanne. He made his living as a translator and lecturer in German at the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

. He was a close friend of

Nelly Sachs Nelly Sachs (; 10 December 1891 – 12 May 1970) was a German–Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazism, Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearn ...

, who later won the Nobel Prize for literature. Celan became a French citizen in 1955 and lived in Paris. Celan's sense of persecution increased after the widow of a friend, the French-German poet Yvan Goll, unjustly accused him of having plagiarised her husband's work. Celan was awarded the Bremen Literature Prize in 1958 and the Georg Büchner Prize in 1960. Celan drowned in the river

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

in Paris around 20 April 1970. It may have been suicide, and if so, perhaps related to the appearance of Weissglas's poem, dated 1944, in the Romanian journal ''Neue Literatur'', and fears that he might again be accused unfairly of plagiarism, the initial assertions about which, in 1953, later occasioned four psychotic episodes involving paranoia.

Poetic style

In addition to writing poetry (in German and, earlier, in Romanian), he was an extremely active translator and

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

, translating literature from Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, and English into German. Meanwhile, Celan's own poetry became progressively more cryptic, fractured and monosyllabic, often deviating from conventional poetic meter and verse structures. He created and used German

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

s, especially in his later works '' Fadensonnen'' ("Threadsuns") and '' Lichtzwang''. Celan has been seen as attempting either to destroy or remake the German language in his poetry, using it to convey dense imagery and subjective experiences; he described this stance in a letter to his wife Gisèle Lestrange as feeling as though "the German I talk is not the same as the language the German people are talking here". The death of his parents and the trauma of

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

are regarded by scholars as being defining forces in Celan's poetry and his use of language. In his Bremen Prize speech, Celan said of language after

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

that: Celan also said: "There is nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even when he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German." His masterpiece, "Todesfuge", may have drawn some key motifs from the poem "ER" by his fellow Romanian poet Immanuel Weissglas, another Czernovitz poet.Enzo Rostagn
"Paul Celan et la poésie de la destruction"
in "L'Histoire déchirée. Essai sur Auschwitz et les intellectuels", Les Éditions du Cerf 1997 (), in French. The characters of Margarete and Sulamith, with their respectively golden and ashen hair, can be interpreted as a reflection of Celan's Jewish-German culture, while the blue-eyed "Master from Germany" embodies German Nazism.

Awards

* Bremen Literature Prize 1958 * Georg Büchner Prize 1960

Significance

Philosophers including

Maurice Blanchot Maurice Blanchot ( ; ; 22 September 1907 – 20 February 2003) was a French writer, philosopher and literary theorist. His work, exploring a philosophy of death alongside poetic theories of meaning and sense, bore significant influence on pos ...

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...

and

Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; 11 February 1900 – 13 March 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 on hermeneutics, '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''). Life Family and early life Gad ...

devoted at least one of their books to the

poetics Poetics is the study or theory of poetry, specifically the study or theory of device, structure, form, type, and effect with regards to poetry, though usage of the term can also refer to literature broadly. Poetics is distinguished from hermeneu ...

of Celan's work. He has been regarded, alongside

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

, Hölderlin and Rilke, as one of the most significant German poets, and a radical innovator of German-language literature. Despite the difficulty of his work, his poetry is thoroughly researched, with the total number of scholarly papers numbering in the thousands.

In film

'' The Dreamed Ones'' (''Die Geträumten''; 2016), is a feature film based on the almost 20-year correspondence between Celan and poet

. It was directed by Ruth Beckermann, and won several awards. Celan is featured as an inspiration for the work of

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...

, who reads Celan's poem Todesfuge, in

Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker and photographer, who is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, Venice International Film ...

' 2023 3D movie Anselm.

Bibliography

In German

* '' Der Sand aus den Urnen'' (''The Sand from the Urns'', 1948) * '' Mohn und Gedächtnis'' (''Poppy and Destiny'', 1952) * '' Von Schwelle zu Schwelle'' (''From Threshold to Threshold'', 1955) * '' Sprachgitter'' (''Speechwicket'' / ''Speech Grille'', 1959) * '' Die Niemandsrose'' (''The No-One's-Rose'', 1963) * '' Atemwende'' (''Breathturn'', 1967) * '' Fadensonnen'' (''Threadsuns'' / ''Twinesuns'' / ''Fathomsuns'', 1968) * '' Lichtzwang'' (''Lightduress'' / ''Light-Compulsion'', 1970) * '' Schneepart'' (''Snow Part'' osthumous 1971) * '' Zeitgehöft'' (''Timestead'' / ''Homestead of Time'' osthumous 1976)

Translations

Celan's poetry has been translated into English, with many of the volumes being bilingual. The most comprehensive collections are from John Felstiner,

Pierre Joris Pierre Joris (July 14, 1946 – February 26, 2025) was a Luxembourgish- American poet, essayist, translator, and anthologist. He moved between Europe, North Africa, and the United States for fifty-five years, publishing over eighty books of poet ...

, and

Michael Hamburger Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted German-British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and ...

, who revised his translations of Celan over a period of two decades. Susan H. Gillespie and Ian Fairley have released English translations. Joris has also translated Celan's German poems into French: * ''"Speech-Grille" and Selected Poems'', translated by Joachim Neugroschel (1971) * ''Nineteen Poems by Paul Celan'', translated by Michael Hamburger (1972) * ''Paul Celan, 65 Poems'', translated by Brian Lynch and Peter Jankowsky (1985) * ''Last Poems'', translated by Katharine Washburn and Margret Guillemin (1986) * ''Collected Prose'', edited by Rosmarie Waldrop (1986) * ''Atemwende/Breathturn'', translated by Pierre Joris (1995) * ''Paul Celan,

: Correspondence'', translated by Christopher Clark, edited with an introduction by John Felstiner (1998) * ''Glottal Stop: 101 Poems'', translated by Nikolai B. Popov and Heather McHugh (2000) (winner of the 2001 International

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...

) * * ''Poems of Paul Celan: A Bilingual German/English Edition, Revised Edition'', translated by Michael Hamburger (2001) * ''Fathomsuns/Fadensonnen and Benighted/Eingedunkelt'', translated by Ian Fairley (2001) * ''Romanian Poems'', translated by Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi (2003) * ''Paul Celan: Selections'', edited and with an introduction by Pierre Joris (2005) * ''Lichtzwang/Lightduress'', translated and with an introduction by Pierre Joris, a bilingual edition ( Green Integer, 2005) * ''Snow Part'', translated by Ian Fairley (2007) * ''From Threshold to Threshold'', translated by David Young (2010) * ''Paul Celan,

: Correspondence'', translated by Wieland Hoban (2010) * ''The Correspondence of Paul Celan and Ilana Shmueli'', translated by Susan H. Gillespie with a preface by John Felstiner (2011) * ''The Meridian: Final Version – Drafts – Materials'', edited by Bernhard Böschenstein and Heino Schmull, translated by Pierre Joris (2011) * ''Corona: Selected Poems of Paul Celan'', translated by Susan H. Gillespie (Station Hill of Barrytown, 2013) *''Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry: A Bilingual Edition'', translated by Pierre Joris (2015) * ''Something is still present and isn't, of what's gone. A bilingual anthology of avant-garde and avant-garde inspired Rumanian poetry'', (translated by Victor Pambuccian), Aracne editrice, Rome, 2018. *''Microliths They Are, Little Stones: Posthumous Prose'', translated by Pierre Joris (2020) *''Memory Rose Into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry, A Bilingual Edition'', translated by Pierre Joris (2020)

In Romanian

* ', Andrei Corbea Hoișie

Bilingual

* ''Paul Celan. /'', editor Andrei Corbea Hoișie * Schneepart / Snøpart. Translated 2012 to Norwegian by Anders Bærheim and Cornelia Simon

Writers translated by Celan

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

Tudor Arghezi Ion Nae Theodorescu (21 May 1880 – 14 July 1967) was a Romanian writer who wrote under the pen name Tudor Arghezi (. He is best known for his unique contribution to poetry and children's literature. Biography Early life He graduated from Sai ...

Antonin Artaud Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud (; ; 4September 18964March 1948), better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema. Widely ...

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

Alexander Blok Alexander Alexandrovich Blok ( rus, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈblok, a=Ru-Alyeksandr Alyeksandrovich Blok.oga; 7 August 1921) was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publ ...

André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

* Jean Cayrol *

Aimé Césaire Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He ...

* René Char * Emil Cioran * Jean Daive *

Robert Desnos Robert Desnos (; 4 July 1900 – 8 June 1945) was a French poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement. Early life Robert Desnos was born in Paris on 4 July 1900, the son of a licensed dealer in game and poultry at the '' Halles'' ma ...

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...

John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...

André du Bouchet André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese language, Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French language, French-spe ...

* Jacques Dupin *

Paul Éluard Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his maternal ...

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classics, classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in ''literae humaniores'' and t ...

* Velimir Khlebnikov *

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

Osip Mandelstam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (, ; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school. Osip Mandelstam was arrested during the repressions of the 1930s and sent into internal exile wi ...

Andrew Marvell Andrew Marvell (; 31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend ...

* Henri Michaux *

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* Gellu Naum *

Gérard de Nerval Gérard de Nerval (; 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855), the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, was a French essayist, poet, translator, and travel writer. He was a major figure during the era of French romantici ...

* * Benjamin Péret * Fernando Pessoa *

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...

* *

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

Georges Simenon Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (; 12/13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer who created the fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most prolific and successful authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 ...

* Jules Supervielle * * Giuseppe Ungaretti *

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, m ...

* Sergei Yesenin *

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, publisher, actor, editor, university professor, and director of several films. Biography Early lif ...

About translations

About translating David Rokeah from Hebrew, Celan wrote: "David Rokeah was here for two days, I have translated two poems for him, mediocre stuff, and given him comments on other German translation, suggested improvements ... I was glad, probably in the wrong place, to be able to decipher and translate a Hebrew text."

Biographies

* ''Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth'' Israel Chalfen, intro. John Felstiner, trans. Maximilian Bleyleben (New York: Persea Books, 1991) * ''Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew,'' John Felstiner (Yale University Press, 1995)

Selected criticism

* ''Word Traces'', Aris Fioretos (ed.), includes contributions by

, Werner Hamacher, and

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe ( ; ; 6 March 1940 – 28 January 2007) was a French philosopher. He was also a literary critic and translator. Lacoue-Labarthe published several influential works with his friend Jean-Luc Nancy. Lacoue-Labarthe was ...

(1994) * ''Gadamer on Celan: 'Who Am I and Who Are You?' and Other Essays'',

(trans.) and Richard Heinemann and Bruce Krajewski (eds.) (1997) * ''Poetry as Experience''

, Andrea Tarnowski (trans.) (1999) * ''Economy of the Unlost: Reading

Simonides Simonides of Ceos (; ; c. 556 – 468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born in Ioulis on Kea (island), Ceos. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of criti ...

of Keos with Paul Celan'', Carson, Anne. Princeton: Princeton University Press (1999) * ''Zur Poetik Paul Celans: Gedicht und Mensch - die Arbeit am Sinn'', Marko Pajević. Universitätsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg (2000). * ''Poésie contre poésie. Celan et la littérature'', Jean Bollack. PUF (2001) * ''Celan Studies'' Péter Szondi; Susan Bernofsky and Harvey Mendelsohn (trans.) (2003) * ''L'écrit : une poétique dans l'oeuvre de Celan'', Jean Bollack. PUF (2003) * ''Paul Celan et Martin Heidegger: le sens d'un dialogue'', Hadrien France-Lanord (2004) * ''Words from Abroad: Trauma and Displacement in Postwar German Jewish Writers'', Katja Garloff (2005) * ''Sovereignties in Question: the Poetics of Paul Celan'', Jacques Derrida (trans.), Thomas Dutoit and Outi Pasanen (eds.), a collection of mostly late works, including "Rams," which is also a memorial essay on Gadamer and his ''Who Am I and Who Are You?'', and a new translation of ''Schibboleth'' (2005) * ''Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951–1970'', James K. Lyon (2006) * ''

/Paul Celan. Myth, Mourning and Memory'', Andréa Lauterwein. With 157 illustrations, 140 in colour. Thames & Hudson, London. (2007) * ''Sites of the Uncanny: Paul Celan, Specularity and the Visual Arts'', Eric Kligerman. Berlin and New York (Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies, 3) (2007) * ''Vor Morgen. Bachmann und Celan. Die Minne im Angesicht der Morde''. Arnau Pons in ''Kultur & Genspenster''. Heft Nr. 10. (2010) * ''Das Gesicht des Gerechten. Paul Celan besucht Friedrich Dürrenmatt'', Werner Wögerbauer in ''Kultur & Genspenster''. Heft Nr. 10. (2010) * ''Poetry as Individuality: The Discourse of Observation in Paul Celan'', Derek Hillard. Bucknell University Press. (2010) * ''Vor Morgen. Bachmann und Celan. Die Minne im Angesicht der Morde'', Arnau Pons in ''Kultur & Genspenster''. Heft Nr. 10. (2010) * ''Still Songs: Music In and Around the Poetry of Paul Celan'', Axel Englund. Farnham: Ashgate. (2012) * ''

and Celan: A very brief comparative Study'', Pinaki Roy in ''Yearly Shakespeare'' (ISSN 0976-9536) (xviii): 118-24. (2020)

Audio-visual

Recordings

* ', readings of his original compositions * ', readings of his translations of

and Sergei Yesenin * ''Six Celan Songs'', texts of his poems , sung by Ute Lemper, set to music by

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his lengthy ...

* ''Tenebrae'' (') from ' (1998) of Marcus Ludwig, sung by the

ensemble amarcord Amarcord is a German male classical vocal ensemble based in Leipzig, founded in 1992 by five former members of the Thomanerchor. They primarily perform Medieval music and Renaissance music, as well as collaborating with Contemporary classical mus ...

* "" (from '), "Zähle die Mandeln" (from '), "Psalm" (from '), set to music by Giya Kancheli as parts II–IV of ''Exil'', sung by Maacha Deubner, ECM (1995) * ''Pulse Shadows'' by

Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' T ...

; nine settings of poems by Celan, interleaved with nine pieces for string quartet (one of which is an instrumental setting of "Todesfuge").

Reviews

*Dove, Richard (1981), ''Mindus Inversus'', review of ''Selected Poems'' translated by Michael Humburger. in Murray, Glen (ed.), '' Cencrastus'' No. 7, Winter 1981-82, p. 48,

External links

* Selected Celan exhibits, sites, homepages on the web *
Link to the new site

Overview at Littlebluelight.com

Limited-edition of Paul Celan's reading before the German literary club, Group 47, from The Shackman Press

Spike Magazine's analysis on the writing of Celan

Selected poetry, poems, poetics on the web (English translations of Celan)

Jerry Glenn (copious bibliography, through 1995, in German) * Recent Celan essays by John Felstiner: 1
"Paul Celan Meets Samuel Beckett"
''American Poetry Review'', July/August 2004 & poetrydaily.org, 6 July 2004; 2
"Writing Zion: An Exchange between Celan and Amichai"
''New Republic'', 12 June 2006
"Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai: An Exchange on Nation and Exile"
wordswithoutborders.org; 3
"The One and Only Circle: Paul Celan's Letters to Gisèle"
''Fiction'' 54, 2008 and
expanded
) Mantis, 2009

featured on

's blog, this is a page of notes, fragments, sketches for sentences, etc., Celan took when preparing a radio-essay on Osip Mandelstam. However, as Joris points out: "some of the thinking reappears, transformed, in the Meridian".
"Four New Translations of Paul Celan", by Ian Fairley in ''Guernica Magazine''

in the original German with a translation into English by Ana Elsner
"Dissertation on the French Reception of Celan"

one of seven poems translated from the German by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov, originally published in '' Jubilat''
Extract from ''Lightduress'' (Cycle 6)
translated by

; originally published by ''

Samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

''
''Dan Kaufman & Barbez music recorded an album based upon the life and poems of Paul Celan''
published on the Tzadik label in the series of Radical Jewish Culture.

Cal Kinnear translates Paul Celan Selected multimedia presentations

* [http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/see-and-hear-poetry/h-n/heather-mchugh/ Griffin Poetry Prize reading by Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh from Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan, including video clip]

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Celan, Paul 1920 births 1970 suicides 1970 deaths 20th-century French translators 20th-century Romanian poets 20th-century Romanian translators 20th-century French poets Writers from Chernivtsi Academic staff of the École Normale Supérieure German-language poets Jewish poets French people of Romanian-Jewish descent Romanian emigrants to France Jewish Romanian writers Bukovina Jews Romanian male poets French male poets Romanian translators Romanian writers in French Romanian writers in German French writers in German Soviet emigrants to Romania Soviet male poets Suicides by drowning in France Suicides in Paris Georg Büchner Prize winners Nazi-era ghetto inmates Jewish concentration camp survivors Translators of William Shakespeare French male dramatists and playwrights Forced labourers under German rule during World War II Translators of Charles Baudelaire Translators of Gérard de Nerval