The project was initiated in the spring of 2011, when the writers were selected and paired by their respective faculties. In October the Columbia students traveled to Leipzig for a week to meet their partners and participate in an intensive translation workshop. They continued to work together through the remainder of the semester via the Internet, and in January, the completed texts were submitted for publication. The American students returned to Leipzig in March for a week of public readings and presentations of Word for Word / Wort für Wort at the Leipzig Book Fair and the DLL (click here for pictures). The event on April 12th marks the culmination of the translation exchange, and the following day the writers will gather for a final session in which they will review and discuss their translations with Susan Bernofsky, an eminent American translator of German literature.
For Columbia’s School of the Arts, Word for Word is intended to inaugurate a series of similar exchanges in partnership with Columbia’s Global Centers in various locations around the world, in the belief that bridging cultures and languages through the medium of literary translation and the work of talented young writers is important—not only to any writer’s education, but to the future of international literature in a time when too few works of literature are translated and published in America, and ultimately to broadening and deepening the relationship of American culture to world culture.
The School of the Arts and the DLL are deeply grateful to Goethe-Institut New York for supporting the publication of Word for Word / Wort für Wort, to the U.S. Consulate Leipzig for supporting the October workshop in Germany, to Columbia’s Deutsches Haus for hosting the April 12th presentation, and to Matvei Yankelevich of Ugly Duckling Presse for the design of Word for Word / Wort für Wort.
UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG TRANSLATION EXCHANGE STUDENTS 2011-12
Jörn Dege was born in 1982. After receiving his degree in mathematics and philosophy from Humboldt-Universität Berlin in 2008, he joined the Creative Writing Program in Leipzig. In 2010 he received a scholarship from the Klagenfurter Literaturkurs for short prose. He works for the Berlin-based weekly newspaper der Freitag, is an editor of the well-known literary magazine Edit and teaches creative writing.
Dagmara Kraus, born in 1981 in Wrocław, Poland, has studied Comparative Literature and Art History, and currently studies creative writing at the at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Jahrbuch der Lyrik, freie radikale lyrik, Edit and Neue Rundschau. In Spring 2012 she will publish her debut poetry collection, kummerang (kookbooks, Berlin).
Prose/Fiction: Bettina Suleiman
Bettina Suleiman received her degree in German Studies and a doctorate in Philosophy. In 2010, she was awarded the Prix d'Encouragement of Forum Femmes Méditerranée. She is a Masters student at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig, Germany, where she is finishing her novel.
SCHOOL OF THE ARTS TRANSLATION EXCHANGE STUDENTS 2011-12
Ariell Cacciola is a writer and translator based in New York City. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Words Without Borders and Publishers Weekly. She is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction at Columbia University and is finishing her first novel.
Poetry: Joshua Daniel Edwin
Joshua Daniel Edwin was raised in Baltimore and has lived in Atlanta, Seoul, and New York. He studies poetry and literary translation at Columbia University's School of the Arts. His latest work appears in the anthology Why I Am Not A Painter, published by Argos Books.
Nonfiction: Katherine Sanders
Katherine Sanders is a writer and translator based in New York City. She received her BA in English at Brigham Young University and is pursuing her MFA at Columbia University in creative nonfiction and literary translation from French and German. She is also a member of Harlem Writers' Circle and the founding editor of a small literary magazine, Crescendo City. Her work has appeared in Bomb and Words Without Borders.
