Heinz Winfried Sabais was born in 1922 in Breslau. He studied literature and philosopy at the University of Jena. During the war he was a pilot. He fled to the West in 1950 and settled in Darmstadt, where he was active in politics as a moderate Social Democrat. From 1954 he was in charge of the city's cultural affairs; he was elected Chief Burgomaster of Darmstadt in 1971. He published four main collections of poetry in his lifetime, and a literary-ideological study of power, 'Gotter Kaiser Diktatoren'. A selection of his poetry and prose, 'Fazit', appeared in 1982 with a foreword by Karl Krolow. Ruth and Matthew Mead have translated selections from the poetry of Horst Bienek, Johannes Bobrowski, Elisabeth Borchers and other German poets. Matthew Mead's collections of poetry are 'Identities' (1967), 'The Administration of Things' (1970) and 'The Midday Muse' (1979).
