Michael Hamburger

A Reader

Hamburger Michael

The "Michael Hamburger Reader" is the definitive collection of poems, translations, essays, interviews and personal reflections by one of the most influential Anglo-German writers of the last century.

Dennis O'Driscoll – a friend and fellow poet – has distilled Hamburger's giant oeuvre into an essential volume that defines his legacy. The translations from German, Italian and French start with Goethe and Holderlin and end with W. G. Sebald, via Celan, Bachmann, Brecht, and Nelly Sachs, among others. Hamburger's own poems, with their subtle musical and philosophical inquiry, are generously sampled, as are his critical essays on major European writers, from Georg Trakl and Gottfried Benn to Samuel Beckett and T. S. Eliot.

About the Author

Michael Hamburger (1924-2007) was a poet and critic of distinction as well as the outstanding translator of German poetry. His awards include the Schlegel-Tieck Prize (1981), the German Federal Republic's Goethe Medal (1986) and the EC's first European Translation Prize (1990) for "Poems of Paul Celan". Five collections of his poetry appeared since "Collected Poems 1941-1994". He also published several collections of essays, the critical study "The Truth of Poetry", and an autobiography "String of Beginnings". His translations include selections from Celan, Eich, Goethe, Hofmannsthal, Holderlin, Peter Huchel, Rilke and others.

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