Paul Celan

Paul Celan was born on 23 November 1920 as Paul Antschel, the sole son of German-speaking Jewish parents in the then Romanian city of Czernowitz. After completing school in 1938, he began studying medicine in Tours, France, but returned to Romania a year later to complete a degree in Romance studies. In 1942, Celan’s parents were deported to a labour camp. In the autumn of that year, his father died of typhoid, and his mother was shot. Between 1942 and 1944, Celan was made to do forced labour in several Romanian camps. From 1945 to 1947 he worked as an editor and translator in Bucharest and began to publish his first poems. In 1948, he moved to Paris, where he lived until his death. That same year, he met Ingeborg Bachmann, and in 1951, Celan met the artist Gisèle de Lestrange. They married a year later before having a son, Eric, in 1955. In early 1970, Paul Celan drowned himself in the Seine in Paris. He is internationally recognized as one of the most important authors of the 20th century.