Interview with Canadian Poet and Playwright Henry Beissel

Abstract

Over the past two years Henry Beissel has been invited to more than 20 German (and Polish) universities for readings. He has the ability to make people love demanding literature; in fact the students of the Canadian department in Augsburg spontaneously founded a Henry Beissel-Fan-Club. This summer I organised a reading for him in the small village of Port Mouton, Nova Scotia, Canada, where Henry and his French wife Arlette were our guests for a while. He is also a fine playwright. In September 2014 Tthe Theaterstückverlag in Munich published in September 2014 -his play Doppelgänger (The Noose) which I have translated. His most successful play Inuk and the Sun is translated into more than a dozen languages. Henry himself has translated some famous works of world literature into English, among them the works of Peter Huchel (one of the most important German poets since 1945), Ibsen, Mrozek, Dorst and Sophocles. Other important poetic works by Henry Beissel are Canthos North and Seasons of Blood. His most recent volume of poetry is Fugitive Horizons, where modern science is reflected. He has published more than 20 volumes of poetry, plus a number of plays, which cannot all be mentioned here. In 2013 the University of Toronto founded a grant for young promising young poets, the "Henry Beissel-Scholarship“. Henry's poetry volume Fugitive Horizons was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award 2014.