We continue our poetic journey through Heidelberg Literaturstadt Heidelberg , and today we invite you to discover the work of the distinguished poet and prose writer Ralph Dutli.
His writing is marked by deep erudition, musicality, and a unique ability to weave together cultural traditions from different eras. We are pleased to present his poetry performed by the author and in English translation.
Ralph Dutli, born in 1954 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, lived in Paris from 1982 to 1994 and has since resided in Heidelberg, the UNESCO City of Literature. He is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. His novel Soutine’s Last Journey received several literary awards and has been translated into various languages, including Ukrainian (Books/Knyhy XXI, Chernivtsi; translated by Khrystyna Nazarkevych, 2017). The translation of the poem “Maibanner” comes from the Anthology of contemporary German-language poetry from Switzerland in Ukrainian and Russian translations, edited by Evgenia Lopata, Meridian Czernowitz 2021. The Ukrainian translation for the Anthology was prepared by Petro Rychlo.
We invite you to listen to Ralph Dutli’s poem in the original language: