Goethe-Institut New York | Current Writing Blog - Announcements

Film on W.G. Sebald opens in New York

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:38:00 +0200

Film
05/09/12 - 05/15/12
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
New York, NY 10014
Tel.: +1 (212) 727-8110

It's not often that we point our readers to films here, but a new work on a great contemporary German writer warrants an exception. W.G. Sebald, who died prematurely in a car accident at the end of 2001, created some of the most stunning works to come out of the German-speaking world in recent years. Now Grant Gee has released Patience (After Sebald), a film essay on "landscape, art, history, life and loss", which looks at Sebald's body of literature and its influence.

Born in Allgau, Germany in 1944, W.G. Sebald studied in Germany, Switzerland and the UK, settling in the UK in 1970. With the publication of The Emigrants in 1992, Sebald became an international author publishing, among other titles, The Rings of Saturn, and Austerlitz, and his work continues to exert an influence on artists, writers and filmmakers.

Director Grant Gee received the Grierson Award for Joy Division and directed the Radiohead documentary, Meeting People is Easy. Patience, shown at the 2011 New York Film Festival, is structured around a walk through quintessential Sebald territory, coastal East Anglia, which he portrayed in The Rings of Saturn. The film features Adam Philips, Robert Macfarlane, Rick Moody and Tacita Dean. Novelist Moody, a friend of Sebald, will introduce Patience at Film Forum on Wednesday, May 9, at 8:20pm. On May 11, at 8:20pm, Lynne Sharon Schwartz will do the introduction.

Judith Hermann's Alice an IFFP finalist

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:12:00 +0200

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, with its £10,000 award that is split equally between author and translator, has announced its shortlist. The group of five candidate includes Judith Hermann's novel, Alice, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo and published by The Clerkenwell Press.

The winning title will be announced on May 14. This year's other shortlisted titles, translated from the Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian and Chinese, are Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld, From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani, and Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke.

Poetry titles nominated for Best Translated Book Award

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:29:09 +0200

Among the shortlist of nominees for the Best Translated Book Award for poetry are two small press editions by German authors. Anja Utler's münden — entzüngeln, for which Utler was awarded the Leonce-und-Lena Prize for Poetry, has been translated by Kurt Beal for Burning Deck as engulf -- enkindle.

Also nominated is Uljana Wolf's falsche freunde, in a translation by Susan Bernofsky titled False Friends and published by Ugly Duckling Press.

The fiction and poetry winners of the Best Translated Book Award will be announced on Friday, May 4, at 6:00pm, at McNally Jackson Books in SoHo as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Each winning author and translator will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Spring 2012 New Books in German

nospam@example.com (Katherine Lorimer ) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:10:00 +0200

We are very pleased to announce that the Spring 2012 issue of New Books in German is now available online. This marks the 31st edition of the publication dedicated to introducing the best of contemporary literature from Austria, Germany and Switzerland. With a special focus on Berlin, this issue introduces NBG's new 'Literary Capital' series, with issues devoted to Vienna and Zurich to follow. Click through for reviews of fiction, short stories, crime & thrillers, debuts, non-fiction, and children & young adults' titles!

German titles vie for 'Independent' Foreign Fiction Prize

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:25:00 +0100

The UK's 'Independent' Foreign Fiction Prize honors modern writing in translation and is unique in that its £10,000 purse is divided equally between author and translator. This year's longlist, representing 12 languages and gleaned from 100 entries, includes two titles translated from the German: Judith Hermann's short story collection, Alice, from translator Margot Bettauer Dembo (The Clerkenwell Press) and Matthias Politycki's Next World Novella, in translation by Anthea Bell (Peirene Press).

The shortlist for the prize, comprising six books, will be announced on April 12, with the final winner revealed at an awards ceremony on May 14.

Fiction Nominees for Leipzig Book Prize

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:01:00 +0100

The jury of the Leipzig Book Prize has announced its nominees for the 2012 Prizes, to be awarded in three categories -- Fiction, Non-Fiction and Translation into German -- during this year's Leipzig Book Fair, which takes place from March 15 to 18.

The five fiction nominees are Anna Katharina Hahn for Am Schwarzen Berg (Suhrkamp), Thomas von Steinaecker for Das Jahr, in dem ich aufhörte, mir Sorgen zu machen, und anfing zu träumen (S. Fischer Verlag), Sherko Fatah for Ein weißes Land (Luchterhand Literaturverlag), Wolfgang Herrndorf for Sand (Rowohlt Berlin), and Jens Sparschuh for Im Kasten (Kiepenheuer & Witsch).

Non-fiction nominees are: Jörg Baberowski for Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt (C.H. Beck), Carolin Emcke for Wie wir begehren (S. Fischer Verlag), Manfred Geier for Aufklärung. Das europäische Projekt (Rowohlt), Lothar Müller for Weiße Magie. Die Epoche des Papiers (Carl Hanser Verlag), and Wilfried F. Schoeller for Alfred Döblin. Eine Biographie (Carl Hanser Verlag).

Audio and reading samples from all works can be found at the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair site.

2012 Chamisso Prize goes to Michael Stavarič

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:23:00 +0100

Novelist, essayist, children's book author and translator Michael Stavarič is the recipient of this year's Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preis, an award presented to a non-German-born author who writes in German. Stavarič, born in 1972 in Brno (today the Czech Republic), has lived in Austria for three decades. His most recent novel is Brenntage, published by C. H. Beck.

The prize, which comes with a 15,000 Euro purse, will be awarded on March 1 in the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Residenz München.

Festival Neue Literatur 2012

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:48:00 +0100

Readings/Discussions
02/10/12-02/12/12
Various NY venues
In English and German
Free and open to the public

The third annual Festival Neue Literatur begins this Friday and continues through Sunday at venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including Deutsches Haus at Columbia University, powerHouse Arena, Deutsches Haus NYU and McNally Jackson Books. This year's author's, representing some of the best new talent in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, are Inka Parei and Larissa Boehning from Germany, Monica Cantieni and Catalin Dorian Florescu from Switzerland and Austrians Linda Stift and Erwin Uhrmann. They will be joined by US authors Chris Adrian and Francisco Goldman at powerHouse Arena and McNally Jackson, respectively

The festival website provides a complete schedule of events, bios of the authors and samples of their work in English. All events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required for the Deutsches Haus NYU event on Sunday, February 12.

Susan Bernofsky wins Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:47:00 +0100

Awarded every other year, the Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis for 2012 goes to Susan Bernofsky. The jury praised not only her translation of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, but also her other prose translations from German, calling her work sensitive, with a sure sense of style.

The Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis alternates biannually between a literary journal and a translator of the Nobel Prize-winning Swiss author. This year's cermemony, to be held in Calw on July 2, Hesse's birthday, comes with a 15,000 Euro purse.

Susan Bernofsky is the curator of this year's Festival Neue Literatur, a three-day series of discussions and readings held throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. She will be moderating the panel discussion at powerHouse Arena this Saturday night.

Felicitas Hoppe new Villa Aurora Fellow

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:24:00 +0100

Novelist, essayist and children's and short story writer Felicitas Hoppe's work includes Johanna, Pigafetta and Picknick der Friseure, in addition to translations, such as that of the poetry of Dr. Seuss. She has received a number of literary prizes, the latest being the Rattenfänger-Literaturpreis from her native Hameln, for her children's novel Iwein Löwenritter. In March, she will publish her ninth book, a "dream autobiography" titled -- Hoppe.

As a spring Fellow at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, Felicitas Hoppe will be working on a project entitled Ilf and Petrov Revisited, based on the road trip journey made by Russian satirists Ilya Ilf and Jevgeni Petrov through Depression-era America and Mexico.

New German titles reviewed

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:13:00 +0100

The frequency of reviews of translations from the German, as is true of reviews of translations in general, leave something to be desired, so we're always happy to point out recent ones to our readers. Those looking for contemporary writers will not find them in this group -- it's 19th and early 20th century all the way down: Count Harry Kessler, Joseph Roth and, as a movie tie-in bonus, Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung.

The least known of the triad, Harry Kessler, had his fingers in many worlds -- those of art, publishing, politics and society, to mention a few. In his review of Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler 1880-1918, edited and translated by Laird M. Easton (Knopf), Ian Baruma calls Kessler the "Catty Chronicler" and maps his path as eager socialite and anti-Semite through the First World War. Buruma does note that Kessler evolves in time into a social democrat and anti-Nazi, territory covered in the later diaries. (The Goethe-Institut Library has the German edition of his Tagebücher 1918 - 1937.) Louis Begley also reviews the book in The New York Times.

The translations of Joseph Roth have received a good number of reviews, especially in The New York Times, but it is the New York Review of Books that gives translator Michael Hofmann opportunity to write on Roth in an essay, a version of which introduce Hofmann's edit and translation of Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, to appear this month from W. W. Norton. The essay also includes the extra bonus of Hofmann's version of letters that Roth exchanged during a decades-long, troubled friendship with Stefan Zweig.

Freud, for better or worse, is enjoying a fair amount of limelight recently, between new books on him and David Cronenberg's film on the Freud-Jung-Spielrein involvement, A Dangerous Method. The books have focused on Freud's cocaine use, as Frederick Crews examines in his two-part "Physician, Heal Thyself", which engendered a heated exchange of letters. Let us say only that we have the major works of Freud (and Jung) in German in our library, along with the Kessler diaries and, soon, Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters.

Happy Holidays from Current Writing

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:45:15 +0100

As the year winds down, we wish our readers happy holidays and a "guten Rutsch" into the New Year. We look forward to bringing you news of new titles and events in 2012. And if you're looking for holiday gifts, give the gift of translation!

Damion Searls wins 2011 ACF Translation Prize

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:54:00 +0100

Brooklyn translator Damion Searls has been named the third recipient of the ACF Translation Prize. Searls' winning entry was his translation of Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek’s 1998 essay, er nicht als er (zu, mit Robert Walser), "her not all her (on/with Robert Walser)", the translation of the title of which alone is an interesting story.

Translating from the German, French, Dutch and Norwegian, Damion Searls has published works by, among others, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Walser, Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, and Marcel Proust. As author, his work has appeared in The Believer, n+1, Bookforum and Harper's. The Goethe-Institut Library holds the translation, Comedy in a Minor Key, by Hans Keilson, and the collection of Rilke poetry selected and translated by Searls, The Inner Sky: Poems, Notes, Dreams.

The ACF Translation Prize, the winner of which is chosen by a distinguished transatlantic jury of literary critics, writers, and academics, honors translations of contemporary Austrian fiction, poetry, or drama that have not previously appeared in English. It comes with a challenge: the grant of 3,000 euros is awarded only upon formal acceptance of the manuscript by a publisher, which must occur within three years of the award. On January 9th, 2012, at a ceremony at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the ACF Translation Prize crystal trophy will be presented, sponsored by Swarovski.

Now available: German eBooks

nospam@example.com (Katherine Lorimer ) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:01:00 +0100

We're very pleased to announce the launch of the eLibrary of the Goethe-Institut in the USA! We have partnered with the German library e-lending system DiViBib so that our US readers may enjoy all manner of German-language eMedia. Anyone with a primary residence in the USA may register with us for access to the eLibrary and the $10 annual fee may be paid via PayPal.

The eLibrary launched in October with several hundred titles including eBooks, eAudio, eVideo and ePapers. Building this collection was not an easy endeavor, largely due to the limited availability of titles that met our selection criteria. We can only hope that the development of the German eBook market picks up speed next year. In an August 2011 interview, Alexander Skipis, senior managing director of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, said, "In the US there is a more pronounced trend towards eBooks. According to the Association of American Publishers, eBooks account for a 5.8 percent share of total book sales, while the retail market figure in Germany is 0.5 percent." Nevertheless, the Goethe-Institut recognizes the enormous potential of eMedia and plans to steadily acquire new titles as soon as German publishers bring more eBooks to the market. We welcome you to browse our eLibrary and look forward to your feedback!

Sabrina Janesch at Ledig House, wins Anna Seghers Preis

nospam@example.com (Edna McCown) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:29:00 +0200

Sabrina Janesch is the most recent German guest author at Ledig House at the OMI International Arts Center in Ghent, NY, where she is writer-in-residence from September 30 to October 26.

Janesch's first novel, Katzenberge (Aufbau, 2010), was awarded the Mara-Cassens-Prize for best German language debut and only today it was announced that she will receive this year's Anna-Seghers-Preis for the novel as well, to be awarded on November 19 at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Born in 1985, Janesch studied creative writing, cultural journalism, and Polish language and literature in Krakow. She served as the first writer-in-residence of the city of Danzig and is currently at work on her second novel, to be published in 2012.