Tumult

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, perhaps Germany’s greatest living poet, was already widely respected in the 1960s, the tempestuous decade of which Tumult is an autobiographical record. Derived from old papers, notes, jottings, photos and letters that the poet found years later in his attic, the book is not so much about the poet himself but more about the many places he visited and people he met. Comprising four long pieces from 1963 to 1970, each episode looked back upon with a postscript from 2014 and a poem, the book focuses on the political events and their participants during that ‘tumultuous’ decade, based on Enzensberger’s personal experience as a left-wing sympathizer. Dedicated to ‘those who disappeared’, Tumult is a document of that which remains of one of humanity’s headiest times.