Peter Huchel (1903–1981) was born in Lichterfelde near Berlin. He studied literature and philosophy in Berlin, Freiburg and Vienna. His poetry has its roots in the native Brandenburg from which he was exiled in the 1970s when he was ‘sent West’ after long official neglect. After his dismissal from the editorship of Sinn und Form (‘Sense and Form’) he was under constant Stasi surveillance. In 1971, he was finally permitted to leave the German Democratic Republic and move, first to Rome, then to Staufen im Breisgau, where he later died.