German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by dialects.
Paul Celan, born Paul Antschel, was a Romanian-born French poet, Holocaust survivor, and literary translator. Due to his many radical poetic and linguistic innovations, Celan regarded as one of the most important figures in German-language literature of the post-World War II era and a poet whose verse has an immortal place in the literary pantheon. His poetry is characterized by a complicated and cryptic style that deviates from poetic conventions.
Yōko Tawada is a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany. She writes in both Japanese and German. Tawada has won numerous literary awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, the Noma Literary Prize, the Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature, the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the Goethe Medal, the Kleist Prize, and a National Book Award.
Robert Walser was a German-speaking Swiss writer. He additionally worked as a copyist, an inventor's assistant, a butler, and in various other low-paying trades. Despite marginal early success in his literary career, the popularity of his work gradually diminished over the second and third decades of the 20th century, making it increasingly difficult for him to support himself through writing. He eventually had a nervous breakdown and spent the remainder of his life in sanatoriums.
New Directions Publishing Corp. is an independent book publishing company that was founded in 1936 by James Laughlin (1914-1997) and incorporated in 1964. Its offices are located at 80 Eighth Avenue in New York City.
Ralph Frederick Manheim was a Jewish-American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th century, and likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author".
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (1990–2015) was a British literary award. It was inaugurated by British newspaper The Independent to honour contemporary fiction in translation in the United Kingdom. The award was first launched in 1990 and ran for five years before falling into abeyance. It was revived in 2001 with the financial support of Arts Council England. Beginning in 2011 the administration of the prize was taken over by BookTrust, but retaining the "Independent" in the name. In 2015, the award was disbanded in a "reconfiguration" in which it was merged with the Man Booker International Prize.
Mark Harman is an Irish-American translator, most notably of Franz Kafka's work, and professor emeritus at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, United States, where he served as Professor of German & English and College Professor of International Studies.
Heather McHugh is an American poet. She is notable for Dangers, To the Quick and Eyeshot. McHugh was awarded the MacArthur Fellows Program and Griffin Poetry Prize.
Jeffrey Angles (ジェフリー・アングルス) is a poet who writes free verse in his second language, Japanese. He is also an American scholar of modern Japanese literature and an award-winning literary translator of modern Japanese poetry and fiction into English. He is a professor of Japanese language and Japanese literature at Western Michigan University. Among his awards are the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2009 for his translation of Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako by Tada Chimako and the 2017 Yomiuri Prize for Literature in the poetry category for his own Japanese-language poetry collection Watashi no hizukehenkosen.
Max Rychner - was a Swiss writer, journalist, translator, and literary critic, writing in German. Hannah Arendt called him "[O]ne of the most educated and subtle figures in the intellectual life of the era"
Jenny Erpenbeck is a German writer and opera director, recipient of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
Ventseslav Konstantinov was a Bulgarian writer, aphorist and translator of German and English literature.
Joachim Neugroschel was a multilingual literary translator of French, German, Italian, Russian, and Yiddish. He was also an art critic, editor, and publisher.
The Calw Hermann Hesse Prize is a literary prize awarded since 1990. It is named after the German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter Hermann Hesse. Alternating every year since 2017, the International Hermann Hesse Prize of the Foundation and the Hermann Hesse Prize of the International Hermann Hesse Society are awarded in Calw. The first prize is awarded for "a literary achievement of international standing in connection with its translation". The latter is intended to promote the examination of the work of the poet, who was born in Calw in 1877. In 2017, the first recipient was Adolf Muschg.
John Felstiner, Professor Emeritus of English at Stanford University, was an American literary critic, translator, and poet. His interests included poetry in various languages, environmental and ecologic poems, literary translation, Vietnam era poetry and Holocaust studies. John Felstiner died in February 2017 at the age of 80. He had been suffering from the effects of progressive aphasia at his time of death, at a hospice near Stanford.
Leila Vennewitz was a Canadian-English translator of German literature. She was born Leila Croot in Hampshire, England and grew up in Portsmouth. Her brother was the surgeon Sir John Croot.
The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation is a literary translation award given by the Society of Authors in London. Translations from the German original into English are considered for the prize. The value of the prize is £3,000, while the runner-up now receives £1,000. The prize is named for August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, who translated Shakespeare to German in the 19th century.
Damion Searls is an American writer and translator. He grew up in New York and studied at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in translating literary works from Western European languages such as German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch. Among the authors he has translated are Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Walser, Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, Kurt Schwitters, Peter Handke, Jon Fosse, Heike B. Görtemaker, and Nescio. He has received numerous grants and fellowships for his translations.
Richard Winston and Clara Brussel Winston, were prominent American translators of German works into English.
