The twenty-one poems from Paul Celan's Crystal of Breath cycle -included in this book in a new translation into Spanish by Arnau Pons- were published in a bibliophile edition in September 1965, accompanied by eight engravings by Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. It was that same autumn, marked by this artistic collaboration, that the couple decided to separate, at least temporarily. The serious conflicts that lived because of the psychic crises of the poet made a life in common very difficult. The truth is that in these poems Celan reaffirms his preference for a couple who will never fail him: his alter ego, whom he calls You.
To express his opposition to the materialist readings of Peter Szondi, Hans-Georg Gadamer wanted to comment on this cycle, poem by poem, in a little book that until now is an obligatory academic reference: Who am I and who are you? (Herder, 1999). Now we bring to the reader the comments that the French philologist Jean Bollack - friend of Szondi and Celan - wrote in order to replicate the Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics. Once again, Bollack displays his find here. The poet has split into two instances: the self, or historical subject, and the you, or lyrical subject. The reader is often faced with the ironic dialogue that these two essential pronouns make. For his part, Arnau Pons complements the deciphering by questioning in turn the supposedly critical interpretations that have emerged in the university environment and also contributes his point of view not only as a theoretician and translator of Celan, but also as a creator.

READING IN A PARTICULAR WAY CAN BE SOMETIMES A SUBVERSIVE ACT.