That's How It Was

Nicolas Born (1937–1979) published three novels, two translations into German (Kenneth Koch and the Taiwanese poet Wong May), and four collections of poetry during his lifetime, including Das Auge des Entdeckers (Rowohlt, 1972) and Gedichte: 1967–1978 (Rowohlt, 1978). Collections of his short stories and essays have been published posthumously. His last novel, Die Fälschung ( The Deception ), completed just before his death, was filmed by Volker Schlöndorff. Born’s collected poems, Gedichte , (Wallenstein Verlag, 2005) was awarded the Peter Huchel Prize as the most important volume of poetry in German in 2005. Photo by Irmgard Born