Romanian Poems

Poetry. Translated from the Romanian by Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi. Paul Celan was a poet of many layers, and until recently readers of English could only imagine his power and complexity. In this book, English language readers can now know the Romanian works of Celan. "Paul Celan. has become the raw material of so much critical processing, it has become difficult to read him without hearing the voices of the commentators. The continual buzzing of the interpretive chorus around Celan's poetry has nearly added another layer of pain to work that is already written at the synapses of raw nerves. I say 'nearly,' because happily there is Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi, who translate the poetry as if there are only two entities in the room: Psyche and Echo. Celan would have been proud to be thus refreshed"-Andrei Codrescu.

The first translation into English of Celan's Romanian poems.

Publishers Weekly

Before his decisive move to writing in German after 1948, Paul Celan (1920-1970), who grew up in Bukovina, wrote poetry in Romanian; work from 1945 to 1947 is here collected in Romanian Poems. With facing-page translations by Julian Semilian and Sanda Agalidi, these 17 poems and prose pieces alter Celan's oeuvre, and are essential to it. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Born in Bukovina (now part of Romania) Celan saw his father and mother die because of the Nazi take over of their country and their imprisonment in camps. He spent most of his life in Paris writing in German before committing suicide.