Tumult

Hans Magnus Enzensberger was already well known by the 1960s, the turbulent decade that Tumult records from his own life. The book draws on old papers, notes, jottings, photographs and letters that the poet came across years later in his attic. It is less about the man himself than about the places he visited and the people he met while travelling through the Soviet Union and Cuba during those years.

Tumult consists of four long pieces written between 1963 and 1970. Each episode ends with a poem and a postscript written in 2014. The text rests on Enzensberger's experience as a left-wing sympathizer in that decade, and it focuses on political events and the people who took part in them.

Translated by Mike Mitchell, the book reads as a travelogue and also offers a glimpse into the history of leftist thought. It is dedicated to 'those who disappeared' and serves as a record of one of the most intoxicating periods in human history.