Todesfuge

"Todesfuge" (translated into English as Death Fugue and Fugue of Death) is a German language poem written by the Romanian-born poet Paul Celan probably around 1945 and first published in 1948. It is "among [Celan's] most well-known and often-anthologized poems." The poem "combines mysteriously compelling imagery with rhythmic variations and structural patterns that are both elusive and pronounced." At the same time it has been regarded as a "masterful description of horror and death in a concentration camp." Celan was born to a Jewish family in Cernauti, Romania (now Chernivtsy, Ukraine); his parents died in a camp during the Second World War, and Celan himself was a prisoner for a time in a work camp.