flucht und verwandlung nelly sachs, schriftstellerin, berlin / stockholm

In May 1940, Nelly Sachs fled from Berlin on one of the last passenger
aircraft to leave the city. Behind her lay more than half a life, now under
threat after the 1933 Nazi takeover. Ahead of her lay thirty years in
exile, as well as the significant part of a literary œuvre for which she was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966.
For the first time, Sachs’ life and work is now being explored in a
large travelling exhibition. Against a background of numerous hitherto
unknown photographs, texts, and witness accounts, the growing
radicality of her poetry emerges along with the cultural and historic
context in which it came about. Who was the unknown lover of the Berlin
years, who would later become known as »the dead bridegroom«? What
happened in the »cuddy,« measuring four square metres, that Sachs
regarded as the centre of her poetic universe? What happened when
her friend Paul Celan visited Stockholm in the autumn of 1960 to offer
his support in connection with the mental illness which marked the last
years of her life?
»Flight and Metamorphosis« shows the circumstances in which
Sachs’ writing developed: in remembrance of a familiar but lost world,
in contact with a new but foreign culture. In short: in a time of crisis
and upheaval. With the help of so far unknown documents, the
coordinates of Sachs’ »invisible universe« can be traced for the first
time. The abundant material, as well as insights into important friendships
with Paul Celan and Gunnar Ekelöf, Margaretha Holmqvist and
Rosi Wosk, paint the portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most
important poets.