Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The first comprehensive biography of Rilke in decades. Brilliantly written, it will appeal to readers of every age." Die Zeit
Review
"This biography reads like a novel as the reader becomes a full participant in Rilke's life and work." Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung
Review
"It will fascinate those unfamiliar with Rilke as well as his admirers. An eminently readable book. A real gift." Die Welt
Review
"The first major biography since Rilke's death." Stern
Review
"A long overdue rediscovery of Rilke." Der Spiegel
Description
The life of Rainer Maria Rilke the poet whose
Duino Elegies and
Sonnets to Orpheus are among the most celebrated lyric works of our century, and whose novel,
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, is a much beloved masterpiece is here brilliantly told.
We see his early life in Prague (raised as a girl until the age of seven)...his strikingly inauspicious literary debut...the years of wandering through which he became, in effect, a citizen of the world connected to Germany "only by language," his intellectual home in Paris...his trajectory through a glittering constellation of writers and artists: Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Diaghilev, Paul Klee, Hermann Hesse, Paul Valéry, Balthus...the two stong attachments that most deeply influenced him his affair with the disarmingly impulsive Lou Andreas-Salomé and his work with the French sculptor Auguste Rodin...and his extraordinary evolution as a poet fitfully bringing forth the work that has secured him a lasting place in world letters.