`Fish Magic’ introduces the fascinating and individual West German poet Elisabeth Borchers, whose poetry has attracted critical acclaim since its first appearance in 1961. Her poems have the elusive and haunting quality of magic charms. As in the art of Paul Klee, whose painting gives this book its title, there is a deceptively childlike surface masking a tragic awareness of the human condition. Echoes of fairy tales, folk song and nursery rhymes mingle with nightmarish moments in these sharp, compelling and original poems.

Elisabeth Borchers was born in Homberg. As well as poetry she has written fiction, plays and children’s stories and translates French literature into German. Her `Gedichte’ won the Roswitha von Gandersheim Medaille in 1976.

Anneliese Wagner’s collection of poems `Hand Work’ received the Eileen W. Barnes Award in 1983.