The Free Press summer reading list

I was asked to nominate so here goes:

Free Press columnist Tyler Cowen picks a biography of one of the finest poets of the 20th century, Paul Celan: A Life, by Anna Arno.

Could Celan be the very best poet of all time? When read in the German language, I think he might be. When read in English, he is still very good. No one has a poetic topic of more importance than the Holocaust. Contrary to Theodor Adorno, he decided it was possible to write poetry after it, and he took that mission very seriously.

Now we finally have a first-rate biography. Celan’s mother was killed in the Holocaust, and he took his own life in 1970, drowning himself in the Seine. How did he get to that point? How did he have the strength and wherewithal to write such powerful poetry in the first place?

I found this book gripping from start to finish. Given the topic I cannot call it a “fun” read, but it is absorbing and the translation is very accessible.

Is it possible that Anna Arno is one of our best intellectuals today? She has written on the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the Polish writer and activist Konstanty Jeleński, and has done important work as a translator, including of Henry James—though those works are in Polish, and thus inaccessible to me. Can we get translations as soon as possible? In the meantime, you can start with this one.

The article has many other quality selections as well.