Author Description

German-Jewish poet Karl Wolfskehl spent the last years of his life, from 1938 to 1948, in Auckland,New Zealand, on the globes last island reef, as a refugee from Nazi Germany. The conditions of hislife forced him to consider the very nature of human existence, and his letters from New Zealand,many to friends and associates exiled around the globe, amount to an intellectual autobiography. Wolfskehl was described by Thomas Mann as a personality of European rank, holding an importantand incomparable place in the history of the German spirit. As a poet and thinker, as an intimate friendand lifelong companion of the great German poet, Stefan George; as a promoter stimulating variedprogressive movements of the twentieth century he was of great influence in significant spheres of artsand letters. During his Auckland years Wolfskehl got to know the formative generation of New Zealand writers:Frank Sargeson, R. A. K. Mason, A. R. D. Fairburn (who dedicated his Poems 19291941 to Wolfskehl),Denis Glover and the acolytes of the Caxton Press and, to a lesser degree, Allen Curnow.