About the Author

Susan H. Gillespie's study of the German language follows extensive post-graduate studies at the University of Freiburg. She has translated Theodor W. Adorno and other writers of musicological and philosophical works, as well as fiction and poetry, and her book-length translations include _The Correspondence of Paul Celan & Ilana Shmueli_, a National Translation Award finalist. A vice president of Bard College, she is the founder o0f the Institute for International Liberal Education. PAUL CELAN was born in Romania in 1920. In 1942, his parents were deported and died in an extermination camp. Celan escaped but was in a labor camp until 1944. In 1948, he settled in Paris, which remained his home until his suicide by drowning in 1970. Though he lived in France and was influenced by the French surrealists, he wrote his own poetry in German. Celan received the Bremen Prize for German Literature in 1958 and the Georg Buchner Prize in 1960.