Poet, essayist, political commentator, dramatist for radio and stage, influential editor and publisher, Hans Magnus Enzensberger is one of Germany's leading public intellectuals. He belongs to the same generation as Günter Grass and Jürgen Habermas, although he has been less bien pensant, less predictable, than either. His early poetry, lyric verse with a strong political content, won him the Georg Büchner Prize and he is now widely regarded as Germany's foremost living poet. Enzensberger is the most important postwar writer you have never read.

LRB 25 March 2010 | PDF Download