Nightshift / An Area of Shadows - Tapa blanda

Powerful and terse. Frankfurter Allgemeine Poems that wrestle with the pain of an inexorable death; among the most powerful poems that this highly-gifted writer [Erika Burkart] has written. Aargauer Tagblatt Nightshift / An Area of Shadows is a moving book of a couple struggling with the inevitable. Tages-Anzeiger Erika Burkart is without a doubt the most unique, lyrical voice in contemporary Swiss literature. Peter von Matt Each of her quiet poems is a dialogue with death, yet each line invokes life. Burkart’s poems leave behind much more than a fleeting trace in the snow. Her delicate poetic footsteps have long since inscribed themselves in the memory of nature and her readers. Deutschlandfunk

ERIKA BURKART was born in Aarau, Switzerland in 1922. Throughout her career she published over 24 collections of poetry, 8 prose works, and was awarded numerous literary prizes, including the Conrad-Ferdinand-Meyer-Preis (1961) and the Gottfried-Keller-Preis (1992). She was the only woman ever to have been awarded Switzerland’s highest literary prize, der Grosser Schillerpreis (2005). She passed away on April 14, 2010. ERNST HALTER is a Swiss author and poet who lives in Althäusern, Switzerland. He has been publishing poetry, short stories and novels for over 40 years. Among his most important works are: Die Stimme des Atems (The Breath’s Voice) (2003); Über Land (Overland), (2007); and the novels, Das Buch Mara (The Book of Mara), (1988) and Jahrhundertschnee (Snow Century), (2009). MARC VINCENZ is Swiss-British, was born in Hong Kong, and currently divides his time between Reykjavik, Zurich and New York City. His work has appeared in many journals, including Washington Square Review, Canary, The Bitter Oleander, and Guernica. His recent books include The Propaganda Factory, or Speaking of Trees; Pull of the Gravitons; Gods of a Ransacked Century; and forthcoming from NeoPoiesis Press, Mao’s Moles. A new English-German bi-lingual collection, Additional Breathing Exercises, is forthcoming from Wolfbach Verlag, Zurich, Switzerland (2013). His recent translations include Kissing Nests by Werner Lutz (Spuyten Duyvil, 2013) and Secret Letter by Erika Burkart from Cervena Barva Press.