Sachs, Nelly

Sachs, Nelly zäks [key], 1891–1970, German poet and translator who lived after 1940 in Sweden. Sachs describes her own experiences and the sufferings of the European Jews in the collections In den Wohnungen des Todes [in the apartments of death] (1947), Das Leiden Israels [Israel's suffering] (1969), and Die Suchende (1966; tr. The Seeker and Other Poems, 1970). The selection of her poems in English, O the Chimneys (1967), incorporates the verse mystery play Eli (written 1943–44; publ. 1951). Sachs shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature with S. Y. Agnon.

See biography by A. Fioretos (2011).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: German Literature: Biographies