Literature · 1891–1970
Born: 10 December 1891 · Died: 12 May 1970 · Age at death: 78
Nelly Sachs died aged 78. She was born on 10 December 1891 and died on 12 May 1970.
German-Jewish poet who escaped to Sweden in 1940 and won the 1966 Nobel Prize for her poetry of Holocaust grief
Did you know?She escaped Nazi Germany for Sweden just before the outbreak of war with the help of fellow writer Selma Lagerlöf.
Nelly Sachs turned the horror of the Holocaust into poetry of mourning. She grew up in a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin and wrote romantic verse as a young woman. Under Nazi rule her life narrowed, and in 1940, with help from the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf's circle, she and her mother escaped to Stockholm on one of the last flights out. In a small flat there she wrote the poems that made her name, beginning with In the Habitations of Death. She also translated Swedish poetry into German. Her work, full of images of smoke, dust and exile, gave a voice to the murdered. In 1966 she shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Shmuel Yosef Agnon.
Nelly Sachs (German pronunciation:; 10 December 1891 – 12 May 1970) was a German–Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews.
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Profile
German-Swedish poet, born 1891
Nelly Sachs was born in Berlin on 10 December 1891.
She fled to Sweden in 1940.
She shared the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966.
She died in Stockholm on 12 May 1970.
Career highlights
Did you know?She received the Nobel Prize on her 75th birthday.
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