Katia N’s Reviews > Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann > Status Update
Katia N
is on page 400 of 688
On plazas of the city at Christmas
…when the gifts begin to tremble because lovelessness walks through the world, because it snarls at you, barks at you from the snow, and the silver ribbons rip and the tinsel rustles silvery, and the silver and gold, and a golden word comes to you on which you choke because you have been sold and betrayed, and because it does not suffice that for you one is redeemed who once died.
— Dec 24, 2025 04:09PM
…when the gifts begin to tremble because lovelessness walks through the world, because it snarls at you, barks at you from the snow, and the silver ribbons rip and the tinsel rustles silvery, and the silver and gold, and a golden word comes to you on which you choke because you have been sold and betrayed, and because it does not suffice that for you one is redeemed who once died.
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Katia’s Previous Updates
Katia N
is on page 487 of 688
Spoken
and the light
went out,
written, and
a person crumpled
like an old dress.
— 10 hours, 41 min ago
and the light
went out,
written, and
a person crumpled
like an old dress.
Katia N
is on page 233 of 688
Mouth, which slept in my mouth
Eye that guarded my own,
Hand-
and those eyes that drilled through me!
Mouth which spoke the sentence,
Hand, which executed me!
— Dec 23, 2025 03:11PM
Eye that guarded my own,
Hand-
and those eyes that drilled through me!
Mouth which spoke the sentence,
Hand, which executed me!
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emily
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Dec 26, 2025 05:58AM
Love this excerpt, Katia : ) . Thanks for sharing. I need to get back to reading more of her writings/work . Need to finish 'Malina' and have a little start on 'The Thirtieth Year'
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emily wrote: "Love this excerpt, Katia : ) . Thanks for sharing. I need to get back to reading more of her writings/work . Need to finish 'Malina' and have a little start on 'The Thirtieth Year'"Thank you, Emily. I hope your come back to her work would be successful. She was such a talented and tragic personality. And all of this is in her poems. They resonate with me so deeply, really make me lost for words. The thing is I do not know German. I am not always happy with only English translation existing (or at least available) in this book. But the combination of some Russian translations, this and auto-translation with google etc. makes my reading these poems almost surreal experience… it is as if I am re-writing some of them for myself. Not sure if it makes sense:-). But if you can read German, you probably would get out of this even more than I do. I would try to share a few more, but this site limits the characters in the update field as you know.
Malina was initially difficult to get into for me, but then I’ve read it back to back twice at least in two languages. Again I think English translation is far from ideal, especially for the second, more surreal part. But I still hope you would manage to enjoy it. The thirtieth year is supposed to be well translated but I cannot find it unfortunately. It cost fortune:-). I look forward ti your thoughts. They are always. Dry unique, original and fresh.
