Alex Stern
on translating Nelly Sachs
This poem takes place in a wonderful knot, where letters and words pulse and push through a world that is beginning and ending at the same time. It is appropriate for Nelly Sachs, who, like her friend, penpal, and fellow Holocaust survivor Paul Celan, believed certain things to be inexpressible. “Warte” takes place in the future, the present, and the past, sometimes using conflicting or confusing tenses. It simultaneously speaks to the Bible and the Big Bang. In the process of translation, I tried to bring all those elements through.
about the author
Nelly Sachs (December 10, 1891–May 12, 1970) was a Jewish poet, playwright, and translator. She grew up in Germany but fled to Sweden in 1940 after she found out she was to be imprisoned in a labor camp. Though she escaped the Holocaust, she later had several nervous breakdowns driven by her fear of the Nazis. Many of her poems center on Jewish suffering: when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966, she said, “I represent the tragedy of the Jewish people.”
about the translator
Alex Stern is a Penn alum and an audio producer. She lives in Philadelphia.
