Authors & Books
Ralf-Rainer Rygulla


Ralf-Rainer Rygulla, born 1943 in Laurahütte near Katowice; has lived there, in Höxter/Weser, Essen, London, Cologne and since 1970 in Frankfurt am Main. Apprenticeship as bookseller, studies at the Pedagogical University of Cologne, DJ, discotheque owner, musician (»Moltostuhl«), lyricist (»Die Qual der Belgier«), translator and editor (März Verlag and Rowohlt Verlag), editor of »Gummibaum—Hauszeitschrift für neue Dichtung« (1969-1970) and literary anthologies: »FUCK YOU, Underground Poems« (1967) and, together with Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, »ACID—Neue amerikanische Szene« (1969).


Der Osten leuchtet (The East Shines)
Poems from East- and Southeast-Europe
- Hardcover
- with ribbon
- 448 pages
- supported by
- ...
- to be released in late summer 2022
978-3-86638-306-7

Poems from Eastern and Southeastern Europe have been collected by Ralf-Rainer Rygulla and Marco Sagurna—this is poetry from a total of 92 poets from 20 countries:
Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Croatia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Ukraine, Hungary and Cyprus.
And they are throughout very different poetic voices from those we currently know as the »canon« of German-language poetry. »The appreciation for Eastern Europe in Germany is more than capable of extension; the relationship to these countries even more. Poetry can help. Many local poets translate and re-poetize it excellently, this East. Much of the admirable poetry made in Germany, however, can hardly run for aesthetics and depth. I feel real power in the poetry of the East. These are texts that are needed, not nice-to-haves,« says Marco Sagurna.
»For our collection, we looked through more than 174 books and about 58 manuscripts. We talked on the phone, emailed, videoconferenced, and went into retreats again and again in Frankfurt am Main and Hanover. We copied every single shortlisted text, read them to each other, and selected only those that we both considered indispensable,« say the editors, »the book is a message.«
Poetic texts are collected here, adapted by renowned authors and translators: from Amanda Aizpuriete, Tomica Bajsić, Justyna Bargielska, Boris Bartfeld, Artur Becker, Olessja Bessmeltseva, Ivan Blatný, Ivana Bodrožić Simić, Petr Borkovec, Metin Cengiz, Bela Chekurishvili, Danila Dawydow, Jacek Dehnel, Jan Faktor, Jelena Fanajlowa, Senem Gökel, Anja Golob, Georgi Gospodinov, Mariusz Grzebalski, Michal Habaj, Klára Hůrková, Nikolai Jakimtschuk, Alexander Kabanow, Claudiu Komartin, Andrzej Kopacki, Dagmara Kraus, Dmitri Kusmin, Thomas Kutzli, Liāna Langa, Jegor Letow, Ewa Lipska, Zvonko Maković, Milena Marković, Ruxandra Niculescu, Gonka Özmen, Miodrag Pavlović, Marko Pogačar, Zsuzsa Rakovszky, Ilma Rakusa, Boris Ryzhy, Tomaž Šalamun, Maia Sarishvili, Faruk Šehić, Andrei Sen-Senkow, Gleb Schulpjakow, Dmitri Strozew, Sergej Tenjatnikow, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, Ottó Tolnai, Alexander Ulanow, Kārlis Vērdiņš, István Vörös, Dmitrij Vodennikov and Izzet Yasar.
The texts were translated into German and re-penned by Georg Aescht, Arnfrid Astel, Alida Bremer, Urŝka P. Černe, Nevfel Cumart, Doreen Daume, Kurt Drawert, Özlem Özgül Dündar, Jan Faktor, Claudia Gabler, Zsuzsanna Gahse, Sylvia Geist, Matthias Göritz, Margita Gūtmane, Manfred Peter Hein, Robert Hodel, Petruscha Huber, Norbert Hummelt, Brigitte Oleschinski, Valeria Jäger, Uwe Kolbe, Sabine Küchler, Monika Rinck, Christha Rothmeier, Joachim Sartorius, Sabine Schiffner, Annette Simon, Alexander Sitzmann, Christian Steinbacher, Sergej Tenjatnikow, Hans Thill, Peter Urban, Achim Wagner, Andreas Weihe, Uljana Wolf and Franciska Zwerg.
Find the entire List of Content as download.
Many thanks to Andrée Sandkötter for designing the cover.

