Word Traces: Readings of Paul Celan

by Aris Fioretos (Editor)

Feauturing the first complete English translation of "Shibboleth for Paul Celan" by Jacques Derrida. The cruical role of Paul Celan in postwar literature is widely recognized among European scholars, but has been addressed only scarcley in the Anglo-American academy. In World Traces Aris Fioretos attempts to redress that imbalance, bringing together thirteen expert readers in the most extensive English-language critical collection on Celan yet published. The volume begins with the first complete English translation of Jacques Derrida's book -length essay, "Shibboleth for Paul Celan." Chapters by Otto Pöggeler, Dennis J. Schmidt, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe then explore the relationship of poetry and philosophy in Celan's work. Christopher Fynsk, Joel Golb, and Werner Hamacher discuss the interrelation of poetry and poetics, and Anders Olsson, Hans-Jost Frey, Thomas Pepper, and Leonard Olschner treat the implications of Celan's practice of translation.

Genres: Poetry

432 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1994

About the author

Aris Fioretos is a professor of Aesthetics at Södertörn University in Stockholm, Sweden. He was educated at Stockholm and Yale Universities. The recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships, most recently from the Swedish Academy and All Souls College, Oxford, he has published several novels and book-length essays in his native Sweden and has rendered the works of Paul Auster, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Vladimir Nabokov into Swedish. His latest, award-winning novel is entitled The Last Greek (2009). Fioretos is also the general editor of the first commented edition of the complete works of Nelly Sachs in German.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection for anyone interested in Celan. Hamacher's essay, in particular, is fantastic.