Barbara Köhler

Barbara Köhler (born April 11, 1959) is a German poet and translator.

She was born in Burgstädt, East Germany, but was raised in Penig. She went to study at the Johannes R. Becher Literature Institute in Leipzig in 1985. She was there for three years then later started doing work for magazines. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was able to publish her first collection, Deutsches Roulette, meaning German Roulette, in 1991 by Suhrkamp Verlag. Many more publications such as her poetry collection Blue Box (1995) and Wittgensteins Nichte (1999), meaning Wittgenstein’s Niece, came soon afterwards.[1]

She released Niemands Frau, her best known work, in 2007. Meaning Nobody's Wife, Neimands Frau tells the story of the Odyssey in the perspective of its female characters. Köhler explains in her Afterword this was done so as to not make them “there in the story as though they weren’t really there: just there for him, for the hero”. In 2009, Köhler won the Poetry Prize of the German Industry Culture Group, among several other awards, for Neimands Frau.[2]

Köhler now lives in Duisburg and has been since 1994. She has worked as an English and French translator from English and French. She has been recognized for her versions of Gertrude Stein and Samuel Beckett.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Gedicht (Barbara Köhler)".
  2. ↑ Paul, edited by Georgina (2013). An Odyssey for our time : Barbara Köhler's Niemands Frau. Amsterdam: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9789042037656.
  3. ↑ "Barbara Köhler (poet) - Germany - Poetry International".


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