The Illuminations series continues this autumn with new pieces of literary art and performance responding to the life and work of Ingeborg Bachmann, one of Europe’s most iconoclastic literary figures in the post-war era.

Driven by a singular poetic voice which managed to fold back upon itself without pretension or obscurity, Bachmann’s poetry and writings have been a touchstone for 20th century explorations of truth and the interplay between the oppressively political and the explicitly personal. Her deep technical gifts were amplified by her commitment to the grim realities of her place and time, and it is this commitment which is amplified so potently into our own strange time.