Why Tyler Cowen Picks Paul Celan for Summer Reading

Free Press columnist Tyler Cowen has a summer reading pick. It is a biography of Paul Celan, the 20th-century poet who wrote in German about the Holocaust. The book is "Paul Celan: A Life" by Anna Arno.

Cowen thinks Celan might be the best poet of all time when read in German. In English, he is still very good. No one has a more important poetic topic than the Holocaust. Theodor Adorno said poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric. Celan decided it was possible and took that mission seriously.

The biography is the first first-rate treatment of Celan's life, Cowen writes. Celan's mother was killed in the Holocaust. He took his own life in 1970, drowning in the Seine. Cowen found the book gripping from start to finish. He calls it absorbing, with an accessible translation. Given the topic, he cannot call it a "fun" read.

Cowen goes further. He asks whether Arno might be one of the best intellectuals writing today. She has written on the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the Polish writer Konstanty Jeleński. She has translated Henry James, though those works are in Polish and so far unavailable in English. Cowen wants translations soon.

The Free Press summer reading list includes many other quality selections. Cowen's top pick is clear: Celan's story of surviving atrocity and producing powerful poetry demands attention.