Sometimes a Single Leaf

by Esther Dischereit

Translated and introduced by Iain Galbraith.

Whether in poetry, fiction, radio drama or sound installations, Esther Dischereit's work represents a unique departure in recent European writing: a distinctive, off-beat syntax of German-Jewish intimacy with the fractured consciousness and deeply rutted cultural landscape of today's Germany. Sometimes a Single Leaf, mirroring the development of Esther Dischereit's poetry across three decades, includes selections from three of her books as well as a sampling of more recent, uncollected poems. It is her first book of poetry in English translation.

From these splinters, flowers bloom:
where the dead lie, trees grow and
we must walk among them.
In these poems, Esther Dischereit, whose mother was one of the few who survived the Holocaust in hiding within Nazi Germany, lays the present over the past with piercing effect. This is a necessary statement of life by an important writer; and Iain Galbraith's excellent translation will bring all the vital, strange wisdom it contains to a new audience. We could not need this book more than we do now.

Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young / Wir, die wir jung sind

Pbk: 9781911469704
Hbk: 9781911469711
Published January 2020

» About Esther Dischereit

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