Translating Cube: Six Sides of European Literature and Translation
The Transformation of the Other
Tübingen
6 – 10 May 2015
Program (PDF)
Wednesday, May 6, 19:00h
Being Exchanged: Between Paris, Stuttgart and Ivano-Frankivsk
Yuri Andrukhovytsh, Lubomír Martinek and Sudabeh Mohafez experience the Other in completely different ways: as a confrontation in the role of the immigrant, as a frustrating experience while engaging in a discussion about the homeland and as an overall attitude towards life in the present day. All three authors talk about their way of mediating in the midst of foreignness and read from their current works.
Sudabeh Mohafez was born in 1963 in Teheran, moved to Berlin in 1979 and has been living in Stuttgart for ten years now where she works as an author. Her latest works are a volume of short stories entitled das zehn zeilen buch [the ten line book] and the novel brennt [burning].
Yuri Andrukhovytsh was born in Ivano-Frankivsk in Western Ukraine in 1960. Since the 2000’s he is considered to be the most important voice of Ukrainian literature in Germany. His latest publication as an editor is the volume Euromaidan. Was in der Ukraine auf dem Spiel steht [Euromaidan: What’s at Stake in Ukraine], which was published by Suhrkamp Verlag publishing house.
Lubomír Martínek lived in Prague until 1979 and then emigrated to Paris. In his primarily essayistic works he writes about the lost identity of modern humans.
Facilitator: Claudia Dathe
Location: Pfleghofsaal
Afterwards: reception
Thursday, May 7, 20:00h
Being Crossed: Telling European History – Boris Dežulovć and Alena Zemančíková
„We need something of our own“ – „It’s good that we don’t own anything.“ Between these two maxims the life of Anna and her family who are in search of continuity and independence in the Czech Republic is unravelled in the short story Wie ein Obdachloser [Like a Homeless Person] by Alena Zemančikovás.
In his satirical novel Who gives a fuck about a thousand dinars now the Croatian author Boris Dežulović tells the story of a member of the Black Pumas, a special unit of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who got lost during military action in the woods near Prijedor and was found three years later in a state of complete mental disarray and unable to speak.
Within the framework of the EU-funded TransStar Europe project, Alena Zemančiková and Boris Dežulović were translated into German by Daniela Pusch and Maja Konstantinović. Alida Bremer will discuss European stories and identities with the authors and translators.
Alena Zemančiková was born in Prague in 1955 and works promoting German-Czech culture. She works for the Czech cultural radio station Vltava since 1997. Until date she has published three volumes of stories.
Boris Dežulović was born in Split in 1964 and works as an illustrator, comic illustrator and journalist. He publishes novels and political-satire poems, in German i.a. Gedichte aus Lora (2008).
Maja Konstantinović was born in Vukovar in 1989 and studies Theory of Literature and Culture at the University of Tübingen. Since 2009 she works on her own literary translations from Croatian and from Serbian.
Daniela Pusch was born in Karlovy Vary in 1978 and today works in Düsseldorf as a tour guide and translator from the Czech language.
Facilitation: Alida Bremer
Location: Club Voltaire
Friday, May 8, 20:00h
Failed: All That Can Go Wrong When Translating
Jokes about the Chukchi? Impossible to understand. A mixture between the Russian and Ukrainian languages? Impossible to translate. A hero called Zbigniew Szczypiorski? Impossible to pronounce.
The improv theatre Action und Drama from Leipzig will illustrate the trials and tribulations translators are confronted with on a daily basis when they have to transfer things that are impossible to understand, impossible to translate and many other things into another language. And how they fail.
The improv theatre Action und Drama is in existence since 2009 and integrates banging collages of scenes into its performances and flowing stories, calm storytelling and scratching at the speed limit of association. Moritz Bockenkamm, August Geyler and Sophie Weigelt will take part in the event.
Location: Brechtbau-Theater
Saturday, May 9, 15:00 – 18:00h
The Art of Literary Translation
15:00 – 15:45h
Being read: The Heritage of Anti-Fascism in the Balkans
BETON INTERNATIONAL is a journal for literature and society that in this year’s edition follows the question of whether today, 70 years after the end of WWII, the concept of anti-fascism is outdated, whether it dissipated or whether it was misused. Participants of the EU-funded TransStar Europe project have translated texts of Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin authors for BETON INTERNATIONAL and will present them to the audience.
Facilitation: Matthias Jacob
16:00 – 17:00h
Being exchanged: Writing and Translating After the Demise of Yugoslavia
Following the wars on the Balkans, six independent states emerged from the former Yugoslavia which today primarily want to differentiate themselves from each other specifically via their policy on language and culture and try to develop independent national literatures. During the discussion translators from Croatia, Austria and Germany will speak about the phenomenon of differentiation, war as a dominant subject matter in the literatures of ex-Yugoslavia and the perception of the literatures at home and abroad.
Participants: Anna Hodel, N.N., Bojana Bajić, Želika Gorićki
Facilitation: Andy Jelčić
17:15 – 18:00h
Being seen: Places of Translation
With a camera obscura participants of the EU-funded project TransStar Europe captured places that inspire them when translating literary texts. With the principle of long exposure – seven days under normal lighting conditions – unmoving objects are in focus while persons and animals turn into fleeting and invisible ghosts. Views on places, objects and situations find their alienated and translated impression on the photographic paper and in this way experience a new aesthetic dimension in superimposed layers of time.
Radovan Charvát presents these pictures of discovered places of inspiration and yearning and engages in discussion with participants.
Facilitation: Radovan Charvát
Between the different events it is possible to engage in discussion with participants of the EU-funded TransStar Europe project from Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Germany and Switzerland while enjoying a cup of coffee or another type of drink.
Location: Stadtmuseum
Sunday, May 10
11:00h
Being Exchanged: Text Echo – Writing and Translating Poetry
During a Sunday matinee Elke Erb, Uljana Wolf and Ilma Rakusa will read from their rich poetic œvre which feeds from their perception of manifold cultural spaces in Europe and abroad. They will speak about the poetry of their own works and of their translations.
In her poetry Elke Erb visualizes the passing of time in a field of tension between persons, things and nature with views that are rich in association and saturated with experience. Amongst the authors she translated are Marina Zvetaeva and Alexdanr Blok.
The current poems by Uljana Wolf are poetic entanglements between the English and German languages from which patterns evolve where the languages blur and new sounds and meanings merge together. Uljana Wolf translates from East European and English languages, amongst others she translates Christian Hawkey.
Texts by Ilma Rakusas are dedicated to persons and landscapes of different cultural imprints, turning their anonymity into an experiencable familiarity. Also Ilma Rakusas has translated Marina Zvetaeva into German and in addition many other Hungarian, Russian and French authors.
Facilitation: Dagmar Leupold
Location: Hölderlinturm
Further Info
Events of the TransStar Europe project
Locations:
Pfleghofsaal, Schulberg 2, 72070 Tübingen
Hölderlinturm, Bursagasse 6
Brechtbau-Theater, Brechtbau, Wilhelmstraße 50
Stadtmuseum Tübingen, Kornhausstraße 10
Club Voltaire, Haaggasse 26b
Contact person: Claudia Dathe
Claudia.dathe@uni-tuebingen.de
Free entry
