Ruth J. Owen is Senior Lecturer in German at Cardiff University in the UK. Her research interests focus on German-language poetry. She has published widely on the poetry of the German Democratic Republic, the German city in postwar poetry, poetry of the body, and the figure of Ophelia in German literature. She is the author of The Poet's Role: Lyric Responses to German Unification and co-ordinator of the Poetry Research Network.

"A brilliantly lively volume which recontextualizes Hamlet from Portuguese theatre, to Russian ballet, Hungarian poetry, Spanish exile writing, German philosophical criticism, Swedish political drama and radical multimedia experiment. This constantly surprising and inspiring volume demonstrates, if there were any doubt, that Shakespeare is still a vital part of our global intellectual currency and Hamlet is at the very centre of the modern European imagination."– Prof. Karen Leeder, New College, University of Oxford