The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin (tr. Mark S. Burrows)
Hilde Domin is one of the most highly regarded German poets of the 20th century. Her work was deeply influenced by her time in exile and the loss of homeland. A poet of Jewish heritage, she fled political developments in Germany in 1932 and spent more than twenty years in exile, first in Italy then the Dominican Republic, which became her self-chosen namesake. After returning to Germany, she was known as the “poet of return” and received numerous honors for her literary work, including the Carl Zuckmayer Medal, the Nelly Sachs Prize, and the Grand Federal Cross of Merit. Presented bilingually, many of these poems appear here for the first time in English, brilliantly translated by Mark S. Burrows.
Praise for The Wandering Radiance
These shimmering poems lodge in the heart and blaze in the mind as they tracethe journey of a deep soul through exile and self-realization. —Jay Parini
Hilde Domin is an essential poet for our current time and for those to come. —Rosebud Ben-Oni
For years we shared Hilde Domin’s poems, photocopied from anthologies, eager for each of her blazing suns, our favorite forecast! Here is the book we have been waiting to carry into the day!
—CAConrad
Burrows has rendered Domin’s deceptively simple language into an English that is as translucent as the original. —Hilary Davies
Hilde Domin wrenched from the darkest of times a formidable belief in the radiance that nonetheless exists in life. —Stephanie Dowrick
Through the clarity of Burrows’ translation, Domin evokes not only her own experience, but the existential loneliness that is common to all; and there is solace in the recognition that this loneliness is paradoxically shared. —Jean Ward
Burrows has succeeded in carrying the radiant power of Domin’s poems to the shoreline of his native tongue. —Vera-Sabine Winkler
A must-read book. —Jewish Book Council
Hilde Domin, born Hildegard Dina Löwenstein in Cologne on July 27, 1909, was a German writer, poet, and essayist. She died in Heidelberg in 2006 at the age of 96. (photo: Mathias Michaelis)
Mark S. Burrows is a poet, scholar, teacher, and award-winning translator of German poetry. His recent books include The Chance of Home: Poems and two collections inspired by the writings of the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart. His translation of Rilke’s Prayers of a Young Poet is the only English version of poems Rilke later included, in revised form, in The Book of Hours. Burrows is also the translator of Iranian-German exile SAID’s 99 Psalms. He edits poetry for Spiritus and Wildhouse Publications, and lives in Camden, Maine. www.msburrows.com