Herzzeit - Briefwechsel - Ingeborg Bachmann und Paul Celan

What's it about?

"Explain to me, love, what I cannot explain..." (Ingeborg Bachmann) In May 1948, two people, a young poet and a young poetess, met in Vienna - Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. He was 27, the student 21 years old. They spent an intense six-week spring together, then Celan left for Paris. "The surrealist lyricist Paul Celan" had "gloriously" fallen in love with her, Bachmann wrote to her parents. A love affair connected the two until 1953, which was resumed from October 1957 to spring 1958. Celan was by then already married to Gisele Lestrange and had a son with her. During this time, Bachmann met Max Frisch and moved in with him in October 1958. The correspondence is the moving testimony of two people who love each other and yet hurt each other, who cannot be without each other, but cannot live with each other.