Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
AGNI 83
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Cologne, Am Hof
Paul Celan (1920–1970) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest German-language poets. He was born to Jewish parents in Czernowitz, then part of Romania. He lost his parents to the Nazi genocide and was himself a survivor of a forced-labor camp. After brief periods in postwar Bucharest and Vienna, he settled in Paris, where, alongside his work as a poet, he taught German at the École Normale Supérieure and translated from many languages. He died of suicide.
Kai Maristed is the author of the novels Broken Ground (Counterpoint, 2003); Fall (Random House, 1996); and Out After Dark (Permanent Press, 1993), finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; and as well as the story collection Belong to Me (Random House, 1998), which received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Her stories and essays have appeared most recently or are forthcoming in Southwest Review, The Iowa Review, Epiphany, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Ploughshares. She is also a playwright and translator, with a new translation and adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s Lulu currently in development. (updated 4/2023)