Sarah Kirsch was a leading East German poet before leaving in 1977 for West Germany, where her work was already highly regarded. While she had supported many of the political and social aims of the Communist government in the GDR, she had been active during the 1960s in opposing the restrictions of the official creed of social realism, by writing poetry concerned with private emotion and individual perception. She has been the recipient of many literary awards, including the Austrian State Prize for Literature and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, and is today considered one of the most eminent German poets.

In her close, stylish versions of Sarah Kirsch’s poems, which combine fluid movement with abrupt dislocations of syntax, and in her choice of poems from all phases of her work, Margitt Lehbert demonstrates the qualities which make Sarah Kirsch’s poetry so original and compelling.