Before the Invention of Paradise

Before the Invention of Paradise is a selection from Steinherr's nine collections published since his debut collection in 1985. Dealing with the things that concern many modern German poets – silence, memory, knowing and the impossibility of knowing, the everyday and what is beyond – Steinherr's is profound yet accessible poetry.

This bi-lingual edition is the first full-length collection of his work to be published in the UK, translated by Richard Dove.

"Ludwig Steinherr writes with almost oriental spareness and obliquity. The idea is everything, expressed simply, as if he invites us to take up a thought he has not yet followed into any certainty... Richard Dove's translations catch the spareness and the physical shape of Steinherr's poems perfectly."
Don Barnard

Ludwig Steinherr was born in Munich in 1962, where he still lives, studied philosophy at the University of Munich and is now a freelance writer and lecturer in philosophy at the University of Eichstätt. His poems have been published widely in magazines and anthologies in Germany and abroad and have been translated into various languages, including French and Czech. Steinherr was elected a fellow of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in 2003.