Book description
Rilke, Sachs, Brecht, Celan: German has produced some of the giants
of 20th century European poetry. In this new selection, complete with
many new translations, Michael Hofmann guides us through the poems,
poets and themes of German verse. Meticulously researched but
eminently approachable, The Faber Book of Twentieth Century German
Poems is an essential new addition to any poetry bookshelf. 'Michael
Hofmann has a skeptical intelligence, an observant eye, a compulsion
to speak the unspeakable, and the useful wariness of the displaced
person.' Helen Vendler, New York Review of Books 'It is probably
impossible to produce poetry of this quality that is tuned more
precisely to the timbre of the present than Michael Hofmann's. Rapture
is the only adequate response.' Geoff Dyer, Guardian
Michael Hofmann was born in 1957 in Freiburg, Germany, and came
to England in 1961. He has published four volumes of poems and won a
Cholmondeley Award adn the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for Poetry.
His translations have won many awards, including the Independent's
Foreign Fiction Award, teh IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the P.
E.N./Book of the Month Club Translation Prize. His reviews and
criticism are gathered in Behind the Lines (2001).
