Lifelines: Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann

Lifelines: Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann

London Review of Books

     Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann met in Vienna in 1948. Bachmann, the daughter of a prominent Austrian National Socialist, was studying philosophy there; Celan was a stateless German-speaking Jewish refugee. Despite the differences in their backgrounds, the two became lovers, and began a correspondence that would last for many years. Now available in English for the first time, these letters between two of German literatures greatest 20th-century writers provide a deeply moving commentary on the search for love and meaning in post-Holocaust Europe. ‘Scarcely more breathlessly and desperately can two lovers ever have struggled for words’, wrote FAZ of the German edition. ‘Little known among German literary historians, the relationship between these two poets amounts to one of the most dramatic and momentous occurrences in German literature.’

     For this discussion, translator Wieland Hoban will be joined by acclaimed British novelists Toby Litt and Lawrence Norfolk to discuss the lives and letters of these two remarkable writers, and to consider the ability of art to engage with the most pressing public and private concerns.

     Wieland Hoban is a British composer who lives in Germany. He has translated several works from German, including many by Theodor W. Adorno.

     Toby Litt is one of Britain’s leading novelists. The author of ten works of fiction, a committed critic, editor and songwriter, he was nominated in 2003 by Granta magazine as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'. He is currently a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck.

     Lawrence Norfolk is an acclaimed novelist known for his hugely ambitious historical works. In 1992 he won the Somerset Maugham Award for his first novel Lemprière's Dictionary. Following his second book, The Pope's Rhinoceros, his most recent fiction is In the Shape of a Boar, which concerns itself directly with the life of Paul Celan.

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