100 Poems Without a Country

Always aware that he was living in an alien culture, these poems from Erich Fried (1921–1988) reflect the sensitivities of a Jew who could not accept an Israel that persecuted others; and who was grateful to the country that had given him shelter and protection from the Nazis despite the great number of matters that made him unsettled in England. Although Fried moved between two cultural worlds, he never lost touch with his native tongue and its literature. Collected here are moving and questioning poems about the Holocaust as well as his work on Vietnam and Chile, which illustrates his ability to combine depth of feeling with a strong grasp of political realties.