Translators are not only especially attentive readers, they’re also vital intermediaries between languages and cultures. In cooperation with the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB) and with the support of the cultural foundation Pro Helvetia, the Centre de Traduction Littéraire Lausanne (CTL) and Palais Valais, translators of German-language literature have been invited to Leukerbad again this year.
Previous featured authors have included Peter Weber (2006), Michel Mettler (2007), Lukas Bärfuss (2008), Katharina Faber (2009), Rolf Lappert (2010), Melinda Nadj Abonji (2011), Christoph Simon (2012), Arno Camenisch (2013), Jonas Lüscher (2014), Peter Stamm (2015), Monique Schwitter (2016), Urs Mannhart (2017), and Nora Gomringer (2018). The workshop has supported translations into Swedish, Ukrainian, French, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Slovenian, English, Turkish, Serbian, Romanian, Russian, and Persian, thereby making an important contribution to the publication of Swiss literature in other languages.
The two-day workshop always focuses on a current work by a Swiss author— this year the novel Hier ist noch alles möglich, by Gianna Molinari. Molinari, who lives in Zurich, was awarded the 2017 3sat Prize at the Bachmann competition for her debut novel, which was published by Aufbau Verlag; she was also nominated for the 2018 Swiss Book Prize.
Six translators will be invited to a two-day workshop with the author to solve translation conundrums and to meet stylistic challenges in her texts: Anne Posten (USA), Carla Imbrogno (Argentina), Marta Eich (Czech Republic), Franco Filice (Italy), Shiri Shapira (Israel), and Gulnoz Nabieva (Uzbekistan). The workshop will be led by Jürgen Jakob Becker (LCB).
The participants will present the results of the workshop and discuss their work as cultural border crossers at the Leukerbad Literary Festival.

A look into the translation workshop:
Saturday, 29 June, 2019, 10:30 am.

Jürgen Jakob Becker
was born in 1964, and is the program curator at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, as well as managing director of the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds. He leads the Translation Colloquium at the festival, and is co-editor of the anthology Zaitenklänge. Geschichten aus der Geschichte der Übersetzung (Matthes & Seitz 2018).

Marta Eich
was born in 1972, and lives as a freelance translator in Berlin. She primarily translates contemporary prose, including works by Zsuzsa Bánk, Iris Hanika, and Peter Stamm, into Czech.

Franco Filice
was born in 1954 and lives as a translator in Naples. For over ten years he has primarily translated contemporary German literature (including works by Jo Lendle, Maja Haderlap, Bov Bjerg, Sylvie Schenk, Thomas Meyer, and Alex Capus) into Italian.

Shiri Shapira
was born in 1987, and lives as a translator, editor, and blogger in Jerusalem. She translates from German, Yiddish, and English into Hebrew, including works by Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Ödön von Horváth, and Wolfgang Herrndorf.

Anne Posten
was born in 1986 and studied German Language and Literature, Creative Writing, and Literary Translation in the United States. She lives in Berlin, where she translates authors such as Anja Kampmann, Thomas Brasch, and Carl Seelig, and teaches Creative Writing.

Carla Imbrogno
was born in 1978 and lives as a translator, author, and organizer of cultural events in Buenos Aires. She has translated works by Alexander Kluge, Mauricio Kagel, Elfriede Jelinek, Katja Brunner, Thomas Köck, and Daniel Mezger, among others, into Spanish, as well as poems by Daniela Seel, Albert Ostermaier, and Tristan Marquardt.

Gulnoz Nabieva
was born in 1981, and studied German and English philology. In 2014, she published an anthology of texts and images about the Silk Road, in collaboration with Elmar Nuess. She has translated Ilija Trojanow, Rafik Schami, Matthias Nawrat, Saša Stanišić, and Shida Bazyar into Uzbek. She works at the Goethe Institute in Tashkent.