Description: Though Paul Celan's poems are widely appreciated, the richness of his life has escaped scholarly attention. Anna Arno pens the definitive biography of one of the twentieth century's great writers, exploring Celan's Jewish upbringing at the crossroads of European cultures, the ravages of the Holocaust, exile, and his struggles with mental illness.
Brief description: Anna Arno is the author of biographies of the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the Polish writer and activist Konstanty Jeleński. She has also published three short story collections in Polish--Okna [Windows], Ten kraj [This Land], and Cialo [The Body].
Review Quotes: Anna Arno's richly detailed account of Paul Celan's life illuminates the contexts of the achingly modern poems that made him an indelible poet of the Holocaust, and perhaps his century's most haunting ghost.--Mark Doty