In 1908, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote Requiem for a Friend in memory of Paula Modersohn-Becker, the German painter who had profoundly affected him and who had died a year earlier. Although a great modern painter, Modersohn-Becker is remembered primarily as she is portrayed in Rilke's poem. Dear Friend looks at the relationship of two great artists whose often-strained friendship was extraordinary for both.

About the Author
Eric Torgersen has published five volumes of poetry, two novellas, and the NBA-nominated Dear Friend: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker. Born in Huntington, New York, he has a BA in German Literature from Cornell and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa. He spent two years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia (a time he draws on for the novella entitled Ethiopia). He has retired after forty years of teaching, thirty-eight of them at Central Michigan University. He lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, with his wife, the quilt artist Ann Kowaleski, and now writes almost daily when not traveling.

Reviews
A brilliant and valuable study, written with grace and passion, Torgesen's work could scarcely be bettered, both for the delight of reading it provides and for the insights into the lives it exposes." -Choice

"As a guide through the intersecting lives and relevant work of Rilke, Modersohn-Becker, and Westhoff, this study has qualitatively and in its focus no parallel in either English or German." -Reinhold Heller, University of Chicago



Book Information
ISBN 9780810118195
Author Eric Torgersen
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Northwestern University Press
Publisher Northwestern University Press
Weight(grams) 405g