Poets and Other Individuals

Christoph Meckel has brought together 32 portraits in this book, each of them based upon a private encounter. Determinedly unspectacular, they are nonetheless highly revealing, catching their subjects in off-guard moments, relaxed, undemonstrative, not at all anxious to impress. Taken together, these portraits add up to a subjective history of post-war literature – and provide insights into Meckel's own work as a writer and illustrator as well. Meckel's portraits of Günther Eich, Wolfdietrich Schnurre, Ernst Meister, Oskar Pastior and Antonio Tabucchi, among others, have an authenicity that encourages the reader to (re)discover these authors and artists.