Poetry. Translated from the German by Peter Filkins. DARKNESS SPOKEN gathers together Ingeborg Bachmann's two celebrated books of poetry, as well as early and late poems not collected in book form, over one hundred of them appearing in English for the first time, as well as twenty-five poems never before published in German. Bachmann is considered one of the most important poets to emerge in post-war German letters, and this volume represents the largest collection available in English translation. Influencing numerous writers from Thomas Bernhard to Christa Wolf to Elfriede Jelinek (winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature), Bachmann's poetic investigation into the nature and limits of language in the face of historical violence remains unmatched in its ability to combine philosophical insight with haunting lyricism.

Author City: Klagenfurt AUT

Born in Klagenfurt, Austria on June 25, 1926, Ingeborg Bachmann studied law and philosophy at the universities of Insbruck, Graz, and Vienna. She received her degree, writing a dissertation on Heidegger, from the University of Vienna in 1950. After graduating she became a scriptwriter at Radio Rot-Weis-Rot in Vienna, and in 1953 won the Gruppe 47 Prize for her first collection of poems Die gestundete Zeit (The Mortgage on Borrowed Time). Over the next many years, she produced numerous collections of poetry, fiction, and radio plays, including Anrufung des Großen Bären (Invocation of the Great Bear) [poetry], the collections of stories Das dreißigse Jahr (The Thirtieth Year) and Simultan, and the novel Malina.