Whoever Drowned Here

Max Sessner was born in 1959 in Fürth, Germany. He has long lived with his wife in Augsburg and has held a wide variety of jobs, working as a bookseller, for the department of public health, and currently for the Augsburg public library. Sessner is the author of eight books of poetry including, most recently, Das Wasser von Gestern (The Water of Yesterday), published by edition Azur in 2019, and Küchen und Züge (Kitchens and Trains) and Warum Gerade Heute (Why Especially Today), both from Literaturverlag Droschl. Among other honors, he was awarded the 2019 Rotahorn Literary Prize. Francesca Bell is a poet and translator. Her debut collection, Bright Stain (Red Hen Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Julie Suk Award. She translated Max Sessner’s collection, Whoever Drowned Here (Red Hen Press, 2023), from its original German. Her work appears widely in literary journals, and she has received a Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle and an Honorable Mention in Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize. Bell grew up in Washington and Idaho and did not complete middle school, high school, or college. She lives with her family in Novato, CA.