FREIBURGER ZEITGEISTLITERATURE (Satis Shroff)

Satis Shroff's Reviews > Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin Friedrich Holderlin’s Selected Poetry translated by David Constantine. The Swabian poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) was born in Lauffen upon the Neckar on the 20th of March 250 years ago. He was a German poet and philosopher and was influenced by Hegel and Schelling, and was also an important thinker of German idealism. The strange and beautiful language of Friedrich Holderlin’s late poemshas been recreated by David Constantine in remarkable verse translations. This is a new expanded edition of Constantine’s Hölderlin Selected Poems (1990/1996) have been widely praised, containing many new translations as well as the whole of Hölderlin's Sophocles (2001). Here the English translator has tried to create an equivalent English for Hölderlin's extraordinary German recreations of the classic Greek verse plays. It might be mentioned that Constantine won the European Poetry Translation Prize in 1997 for his translatio...

  A Flight to the Himalayas (Satis Shroff,Freiburg) "Will the passengers please fasten their seat belts," said a soft voice over the intercom. And I slid one end of the belt into the heavy metallic slot, sat back, and peered through the window of the Royal Nepal jet. The runway was clear and there was an Airbus 310, three Russian-made helicopters and a Dornier-aircraft near the control tower of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport. Some people waved from the tower. It was one of those early-morning mountain flights that are run 'provided-the-weather-is-good' as they say in tourist-brochures. My seat was right near the port wing and I could get a fairly good view of the engines coming noisily to life. The jet taxied lazily down the southern end of the runway, swerved around and sped towards the north gathering momentum till I could finally feel a hollow in my stomach. We were airborne. It was a steep climb and the blue mountain front was looming close. You could...

Fictional Shortstory:  TWO WORLDS (Satis Shroff) I look at the Himalayas and feel peace and joy sweeping over me. I don’t see the valleys, spurs, tarns we learn about at school. I see the eternal snows as the home of Gods and Goddesses: Shiva, Parvati, Meru, Kailash, Annapurna and Sagarmatha. At home I lived in a Hindu world in a house that is actually a two-storied bungalow. At school I inhabited a western-oriented, Catholic world. My Mom said that the Ganges river, also known as Ganga, was brought from Heaven by the sage Bhagirath. Ganga was received by Shiva on his head, and from her mouth flows the water to the earth, down the Ganges delta. But my Irish teacher said the Ganges has its origin in a Himalayan glacier. One was mythology, I was told, and the other was Geography and I had to learn to keep the two apart. Growing up was learning to live in two worlds, two cultures, two languages, norms and values, and sometimes I was muddled up in my thoughts. Why was I scared when I s...

  Satis Shroff (Germany) Satis Shroff is based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) and has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander (togetherness) in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany   THE DANCER AND THE POET  There she is a blonde Flamenco dancer, From a family that was long dysfunctional. The poet says: ‘Dance, my dear to the rhythm Of the guitar and my lyrics.’ She pushes her feet to perform the fiery rhythms, She dances in a trance, Like a shaman in a séance. By working them out Till she’s...