Paul Celan (1920–1970) was born Paul Antschel into a Jewish family in Bukovina, a German enclave in Romania which was destroyed by the Nazis. His parents were taken to a concentration camp in 1942, and did not return; Celan managed to escape deportation and to survive. After settling in Paris in 1948, he gained widespread recognition as a poet with the publication of his first collection of poems in German in 1952. His earliest poems were written in Romanian andhave been translated by, among others, his friend Nina Cassian. He was afine translator of poetry, mainly from French, English, Russian and Romanian. His mysterious meeting with Martin Heidegger was the subject of a radio play by John Banville.
