Ernst Meister was raised in Hagen, Germany. He studied theology, literature, art history, and philosophy (the latter under Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer) at various German universities before enlisting as a soldier in the Second World War. A number of war-related experiences are worked into his poems, stories, radio plays, and stage plays. His first major publication,
Austellung, appeared in 1932, following which he published nothing for two decades. This period of silence ultimately gave way to the prolific last third of his life. Between 1953 and 1979, Meister produced more than 16 volumes of verse along with a number of other literary and visual works. He received a number of awards in his lifetime, including the Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Prize in 1957, the Great Art Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1963, the
Petrarch Prize in 1976, and the Rainer Maria Rilke Prize for Poetry (jointly with
Sarah Kirsch) in 1978. Meister was posthumously given the most prestigious award in German literature, the
Georg Büchner Prize, having been informed of the honor days before his death. He was a mentor to the poet and novelist
Nicolas Born.
Poetry • 1932:
Ausstellung (trans.
Exhibition) • 1953:
Unterm schwarzen Schafspelz (trans. ''Under Black Sheep's Clothing'') • 1954:
Dem Spiegelkabinett gegenüber • 1972:
Sage vom Ganzen den Satz • 1976:
Im Zeitspalt (trans. ''In Time's Rift'') • 1979:
Wandloser Raum • ''In Time's Rift [Im Zeitspalt]'' , Translated by
Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick,
Wave Books, 2012 •
Wallless Space , Translated by
Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick,
Wave Books, 2014 ==References==