Translated from the German by Pierre Joris—winner of the 2004 PEN Translation Award for Celan’s Lightduress—the is the first of Celan’s three major books of poetry before his death by suicide. Considered by many to be one of Celan’s major writings, Breathturn brilliant reveals the “Wende” or turn of writing.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In Europe, Celan has become an increasingly important poet of the second half of the 20th century, largely for his efforts to create a post-Holocaust language for German poetry. The facts of his life seem inseparable from his work: his term in a Nazi work camp, the murder of his parents by the Nazis, his death by suicide in his adopted France in 1970. Joris, a poet and professor at SUNY-Albany, places Celan and this work (Atemwende, originally published in 1967) in context for the uninitiated American reader and discusses the problems in translating this poet's writing. Celan consciously attempted to move the German language away from lyricism toward a terse, charged accuracy that could reflect the unrepresentable: "Down melancholy's rapids/ past the blank/ woundmirror:/ there the forty/ stripped lifetrees are rafted./ Single counter-/ swimmer, you/ count them, touch them/ all." Joris's translations (on pages facing the German text) capture much of the multilingual resonance, subtlety and compressed power of Celan's brilliant, difficult work, which has absorbed the interest of such critics as George Steiner and Jacques Derrida.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
One of the greatest German-language poets of the century (born in what is now Romania), Celan has had a significant influence on poetic trends in the United States as well as in Europe. He committed suicide in 1970, having spent time in forced labor camps during the war. He has been described as surrealist because his poems use language and draw together images in ways that challenge the reader to make sense of them. "Sense" is perhaps not intended by this poet, noted for creating composite words like "eternityteeth," "desertbread," and "heartshadowcord." His poems are possessed of a positive energy that is difficult to explain, given his tragic background. Others have translated Celan into English, most notably poet Michael Hamburger (Poems of Paul Celan, LJ 5/1/89). Joris's translations, offered here in a bilingual edition, do not differ greatly from Hamburger's?both translators are competent and careful. Joris's major contribution is tackling the entirety of Atemwende (1967), bringing many previously untranslated poems to the attention of English-speaking audiences. Recommended for collections of world poetry.?Judy Clarence, California
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This excellent translation echoes the ice-pure German text.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Breathturn (Sun & Moon Classics, 74) (English and German Edition) (Paperback)
Pierre Joris' translation of Paul Celan's _Breathturn_ captures the unique quality of this Jewish exile-poet's work more than any other attempt published to date.
In this new English rendering, Celan's crystalline words float through the page with the same clarity and intense focus of mind as in the original texts. The blank page is always present as a timeless mirror reflecting the poet's soul--a mirror on which condenses the dark breath of speech, the alienated and alienating words to which the poet so desperately clings. These difficult, tense and multi-faceted poems are broken open here with a jewel-cutter's skilled grace. The expert translations hauntingly echo the parallel German, resonating so as to remind us that Celan's experience of the world belongs in every language.
This scholarly translator has newly introduced a much-needed poet into the English language, and in so doing has enriched our experience of language, literature, and the exiled spirit.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Breath, that means direction and fate...",
This review is from: Breathturn (Sun & Moon Classics, 74) (English and German Edition) (Paperback)
Celan himself described the meaning of the word "breath" that way. And so, the title "Breathturn" indicates clearly what these poems are about: a change, a turning point in Celan's life. When he wrote them in between 1965 and 1967, his mental suffering was already so strong that he went to a psychiatry for half a year.In spite of that, "Breathturn" might be the most convincing of all of Celan's poetry. At this point, he had completely given up the language of his early poetry that had made him famous - full of images, colours, dark metaphorics - and turned to the "grey language". It is very elusive, and I think I will have to read his later poems very, very often until I get a feeling for them because they are beyond all conventional poetry and can't be interpretated like they use to do it at school. The poems of "Breathturn" are rather short, few lines, few words in them. "Growing dumb" is a central word in this book. Celan did no more trust into language, and so he wanted to concentrate his thoughts and to tell things in a way they have never been told before or that have never been told before at all.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful,
By
This review is from: Breathturn (Green Integer) (German Edition) (Paperback)
This extraordinary volume of the great Paul Celan marks his `turn,' in the final phase of his career, in which his work grew more abstracted, with more esoteric and wonderful neologisms and curiously primordial imagery.
Pierre Joris has completed a fine translation from the German; the works remain highly creative and retain Celan's remarkable play with structure and phonemes. Look at the creativity: "Eye- less scooped from you, eyes: the six- edged, denial, white, erratic. A blind man's hand, it also starhard From name-wandering, Rests on him, as Long as on you, Esther." (111). The tragic undertow of Celan's poetry will pull you in. Enjoy.
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