Paul Celan (23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel into a Jewish family in the former Kingdom of Romania (now Ukraine), and changed his name to "Paul Celan" (where Celan in Romanian would be pronounced Chelàn, and was derived from Ancel, pronounced Antshel), becoming one of the major German-language poets of the post-World War II era.