Name: Nelly Sachs
Year Won: 1966
Read: O the Chimneys
Original Language: German
Reason: "for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength"
About: "O the Chimneys" is one poem of many in a collection by the same name. It's a dark lyrical poem (more on that later) in a collection of equally dark, lyrical poems. Sachs fled the Holocast with "nothing left but her language" and that darkness shows through.
What I liked: The poetry is beautiful, yet uncomfortable. It's really good. I'll reproduce the title poem here...
O the chimneys
And though after my skin worms destroy this
body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.-Job, 19:26
O the chimneys
On the ingeniously devised habitations of death
When Isreal's body drifted as smoke
Through the air-
Was welcomed by a star, a chimney sweep,
A star that turned black
Or was it a ray of sun?
O the chimneys!
Freedomway for Jeremiah and Job's dust-
Who devised you and laid stone upon stone
The road for refugees of smoke?
O the habitations of death,
Invitingly appoitned
For the host who used to be a guest-
O you fingers
Laying the threshold
Like a knife between life and death-
O you chimneys,
O you fingers
And Isreal's body as smoke through the air!
What I Disliked: The poems truly are dark. REALLY dark. It makes sense, but again, uncomfortable stuff.
Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. This is brilliant stuff and Sachs well deserves her prize. I only wish her life had been a more comfortable one.
Next Up: "El Senior Presidente" by Miguel Angel Asturias
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