O The Chimneys; Selected Poems, Including The Verse Play, Eli - 1st Edition/1st Printing

Nelly Sachs's career as a poet of note started only after her emigration to Sweden. Her first volume of poetry, In the Houses of Death creates a cosmic frame for the suffering of her time, particularly that of the Jews. Her poems are written in a keenly modern style, with an abundance of lucid metaphors, they also intone the prophetic language of the Old Testament. The collections Sternverdunkelung (Eclipse of Stars), 1949, Und niemand weiss weiter (And No One Knows Where to Go), 1957, and Flucht und Verwandlung (Flight and Metamorphosis), 1959, repeat, develop, and reinforce the cycle of suffering, persecution, exile, & death which characterizes the life of the Jewish people, & becomes transformed, in Nelly Sachs's powerful metaphorical language, into the terms of man's bitter, but not hopeless, destiny. Of her poetic dramas, the miracle play Eli (1950), broadcast in West Germany as a radio play, has been widely acclaimed. Nelly Sachs has received awards in Sweden and Germany, among them the Prize of the Swedish Poets Association & the "Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels". In 1961 her collected poems were published under the title of Fahrt ins Staublose (Journey to the Beyond); her verse dramas in Zeichen im Sand (Signs in the Sand). O the Chimneys, English translations of some of her poetry and of her play Eli, appeared in 1967. Nelly Sachs was the co-winner of the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature. This book, containing nearly half of her verse, is her first to be published in the English language. The book includes in its entirety one of her most important poem sequences, 'Glowing Enigmas, I, II, and III,' written in the 1960's; poems from six other collections: 'In the Habitations of Death,' 'Eclipse of the Stars,' 'And No One Knows How to Go On,' 'Flight and Metamorphosis, Journey into a Dustless Realm,' and 'Death Still Celebrates Life'; & the complete text of 'Eli,' a mystery play of the sufferings of Israel.