Erich Fried

Erich Fried (6 May 1921 – 22 November 1988) was an Austrian-born poet, writer, and translator. He initially became known to a broader public in both Germany and Austria for his political poetry, and later for his love poems. As a writer, he mostly wrote plays and short novels. He also translated works by different English writers from English into German, most notably works by William Shakespeare.
He was born in Vienna, Austria, but fled to England after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938. He settled in London and adopted British nationality in 1949. His first official visit back to Vienna was in 1962.
Biography
Born to Jewish parents Nelly and Hugo Fried in Vienna, he was a child actor and from an early age wrote political essays and poetry. He fled to London after his father was murdered by the Gestapo after the Anschluss (i.e. annexation of Austria) by Nazi Germany.
During World War II, he did casual work as a librarian and a factory hand. He arranged also for his mother to leave Nazi-occupied Austria, as well as helping many other Jews to come to the UK. He joined Young Austria, a left-wing emigrant youth movement, but left in 1943 in protest of its growing Stalinist tendencies. In 1944, he married Maria Marburg, shortly before the birth of his son Hans. During the same year, his first volume of poetry was published. He separated from Maria in 1946.
Fried's German translation of Masefield's Good Friday was broadcast on the BBC German Service in 1951. He divorced Maria in 1952. In the same year, he married Nan Spence Eichner, with whom he had two children; David (b. 1958) and Katherine (b. 1961). From 1952 to 1968, he worked as a political commentator for the BBC German Service. He translated works by Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, and Dylan Thomas. In 1962, he returned to Vienna for the first time. Erich and Nan divorced in 1965. In 1965, he married for a third time, wedding Catherine Boswell with whom he had three children; Petra (b. 1965), Klaus, and Thomas (b. 1969).
He published several volumes of poetry as well as radio plays and a novel. His work was sometimes controversial, including attacks on the Zionist movement and support for left-wing causes. His work was mainly published in the West, but in 1969, a selection of his poetry was published in the GDR poetry series Poesiealbum, and his Dylan Thomas translations were published in that same series in 1974. The composer Hans Werner Henze set two of Fried's poems for his song-cycle Voices (1973).
In 1982, he regained his Austrian nationality, though he also retained the British nationality he had adopted in 1949. He died of intestinal cancer in Baden-Baden, West Germany, in 1988 and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.
An Austrian literary prize is named in his honour, more specifically the Erich Fried Prize.
Works
Drei Gebete aus London (Three Prayers from London), 1945
Ein Soldat und ein Mädchen (A Soldier and a Girl), 1960
Reich der Steine, 1963
Warngedichte (Warning Poems), 1964
Überlegungen, 1964
Kinder und Narren, 1965
und Vietnam und (and Vietnam and), 1966
Anfechtungen, 1967
Die Beine der größeren Lügen, 1969
Poesiealbum, 1969
Unter Nebenfeinden, 1970
Die Freiheit den Mund aufzumachen, 1972
Höre Israel, 1974
So kam ich unter die Deutschen, 1977
100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland, 1978
Liebesgedichte (Love Poems), 1979
Es ist was es ist (It is what it is), 1983
Um Klarheit, 1985
Mitunter sogar Lachen, 1986
Translations of Erich Fried's Works into English
Arden Must Die: An Opera on the Death of the Wealthy Arden of Faversham. (Original title: Arden muss sterben). Translated by Geoffrey Skelton. London: Schott 1967; New York: Associated Music Publishers 1967
Last Honours. A selection of poems translated by Georg Rapp. London: Turret 1968
On Pain of Seeing. A selection of poems translated by Georg Rapp. London: Rapp and Whiting 1969; Chicago: Swallow Press 1969
100 Poems Without a Country (identical in most parts with the original 100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland). Translated by Stuart Hood and Georg Rapp. London: John Calder 1978; New York: Red Dust 1980
Love Poems. Bilingual edition. A selection of poems from Liebesgedichte (1979) and Es ist was es ist (1983), translated by Stuart Hood. London: Calder Publication Limited Riverrun Press 1991. New, revised edition Alma Classics Ltd, 2011
Children and Fools. A selection of 34 stories translated by Martin Chalmers. London: Serpent's Tail 1993
There are as well translations of single poems in different anthologies.
References
External links
1921 births
1988 deaths
Anti-Zionist Jews
Austrian essayists
Austrian male poets
Jewish poets
Georg Büchner Prize winners
20th-century Austrian poets
Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery
Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
20th-century British poets
British male poets
20th-century British essayists
20th-century British male writers