“You’ve been, when I met you, both for me: the sensual and the mental.”

Tonight, Johanna Wokalek and Jens Harzer read the letters of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, the two most important post-war German poets.

Their love affair started in post-war Vienna, where Bachmann studied philosophy. For Celan it was merely a stopover. They met in May 1948, on the eve of Celan’s voyage to Paris. Their correspondence started with little commitment, developed hesitantly and continued in ongoing dramatics. Hear the epic affair it come alive.