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Coming to Terms with a Child / Ein Kind kommt zur Sprache

Coming to Terms with a Child, the autobiographical long poem by the Canadian poet and dramatist Henry Beissel was publised in 2011 by Black Moss Press. Now the poem has been re-published in a bilingual edition under the title Coming to Terms with a Child / Ein Kind kommt zur Sprache by the publisher Literaturwissenschaft. Beissel has had great reaction to his readings, especially in Germany.

In his long poem Henry Beissel deals with his youth in Germany during the Third Reich and the war, in order to explain his life to himself and his grandson. In fourteen segments Beissel describes stations of his life, spanning from earliest childhood memories over his time as pupil in Nazi Germany to his decision to leave for Canada, where he would become professor for Canadian literature. Prof. Dr. Martin Kuester has written a foreword to the bilingual edition.

Henry Beissel is poet, dramatist, essayist and translator and is living in Ottawa. His writing has become well-known on the national level in Canada due to his publication of the controversial political-literary journal Edge from 1963 to 1969. He has since published more than thirty books which have been well-received in both Canada and around the world. Beissel has given readings all over Canada, but also in the US, South- and Central America, Europe, Africa and China.