Paul Celan

French-Romanian poet and translator (1920–1970)

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Lived 1920–1970, aged 50France

France WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
52 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1920–1970
Aged 50
Known for
The Dreamed Ones
2016

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He turned the language of his mother's murderers into verse so dense and broken it rewrote what German poetry could mean after the camps.

Biography

About

Born Paul Antschel in Romania on 23 November 1920, he survived the Holocaust while his parents did not. After the war he took the pen name Celan—an anagram of Ancel, the Romanian spelling of his surname—and moved to France in 1949, becoming a French citizen in 1955. His poetry, written in German, broke radically with convention: cryptic, linguistically innovative, shaped by what could barely be said. That difficulty made him one of the most important figures in German-language literature of the post-war era. He drowned in the Seine around 20 April 1970.

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Paul Celan

Paul Celan

saidundated

A little stallion gallops across the leafing fingers-Black the gate leaps open, I sing; How did we live here?

— "Tallow Lamp" in: Paul Celan (1972) Selected poems. p. 22

Paul Celan

saidundated

Aspen tree, your leaves glance white into the dark.

— "Aspen Tree. . ."; cited in: Ruth Golan (2006). Loving Psychoanalysis. p. 61

Paul Celan

saidundated

We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:it is time they knew! It is time the stone made an effort to flower,time unrest had a beating heart.

— "Corona" In: Paul Celan, ‎Pierre Joris (2005). Paul Celan: Selections. p. 44

Paul Celan

saidundated