Peter Huchel was born in Lichterfelde, near Berlin, in 1903, and died at Staufen, in 1981. Following his release from a Soviet war prison, he returned to East Germany, where he served as editor of Sinn und Form until forced to resign by the East German authorities for his objections to party interference in editorial policy. Thereafter, he lived under house arrest, unable to work or publish in his own country, until he was allowed to emigrate to the West in 1971. One of twentieth-century Germany’s greatest poets, the author of verse plays and the recipient of many honors, he is not well known in the United States.