Oskar Pastior

Oskar Pastior (1927–2006) was a Romanian-German poet and translator. He was born in Hermannstadt (now Sibiu, Romania) and, as a seventeen-year-old in 1945, was deported to the Donbas for forced labor; he returned in 1949. He subsequently studied German language and literature in Bucharest and began working there as a writer and for radio. His first volume of poetry was published in 1964. From 1969 onward, he worked as a freelance writer in Berlin. Pastior was a member of the literary group OuLiPo, the German Academy for Language and Literature, and the Academy of Arts. His numerous honors included the Georg Büchner Prize in 2006. He died in Frankfurt am Main on October 4, 2006.