Paul Celan (/ˈsɛlæn/; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a German language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsy, Ukraine), and adopted the pseudonym "Paul Celan". (Celan in Romanian is pronounced Chelàn, and was derived from transposing the syllables of his surname). He became one of the major German-language poets of the post-World War II era.