For further information on translation, the TransStar project and the Translating Cube please go to the following link: http://transstar-europa.org.

The newsletter 4/2014 in the each of the languages can be downloaded here:

Ukrainian
Slovenian
Polish
Croatian
Czech

20 May 2015
In mid-spring the TransStar project will continue with new events.

In this newsletter you will find:

Translating Cube in Prague – Searching For and Finding Words

Networking Meeting TransStar June 2015

Translating Cube in Prague – Searching For and Finding Words

After events in Krakow, Stuttgart and Ljubljana the Translation Cube rolls on to Prague. From 4 – 6 June discussions, readings, concerts, interactions and presentations on literary translation will take place at different locations in Prague. Their purpose is to attract a broad interested public audience.

In the debate on the funding potential in Central and Eastern Europe, representatives from funding agencies and institutes (Goethe Institute, Austrian Cultural Forum, German-Czech Future Fund, House of Literature for German-language Authors in Prague, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)) met on June 4 and discussed the policies and concepts of cultural mediation, academic exchange, the propagation of literature and advancing translation. Jindřich Mann will read and discuss his relationship with Prague and its multicultural history. Karlstruppe, a student theatre group from Prague, will perform their montage of texts from one of the most famous writers of German literature from Prague entitled Kafka’s Spa Retreats and the Czecho-Slovakian Wunder Bar Band which will introduce Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf set to music.

On the afternoon of June 5 a number of parallel events will take place at the Philosophicum of the Charles University. As revolutionaries and smart alecs Matthias Jacob and Jurko Prochasko will discuss aspects of generation and history in translation with participants of their translator workshops. Olaf Kühl and Sława Lisiecka will set traps and rebusses with their workshop participants in Things that do not exist, with a focus on translation between German and Polish. In the student club Celetná the audience will meet Jan Faktor, who will read from his novel George’s Worries about the Past, and Radovan Charvát, who is the translator of the novel into the Czech language. We will talk with them about the special constellation of two native speakers Czech writing and translating a text.

On the afternoon of June 6 Zsuzsanna Gahse will speak with her translators Olha Drachuk and Karolina Matuszewska about her travels in Europe according to her own experiences and translating these into literature. TransSlam?! will conclude the evening with scenic readings of German-Czech and Czech-German translations by workshop participants from the TransStar project and with improvised musical intermezzos at the student club Celetná.

Networking Meeting TransStar June 2015

With the translating cube events the second networking meeting of the EU-funded project TransStar Europe will take place. Participants will receive basic training in computer-aided translation by Tomáš Svoboda, Tomáš Svoboda will discuss the translation of acoustic dimensions of poetry with Pavel Novotný and participants will be introduced to project management by Kateryna Stetsevych. Andy Jelčić will introduce the advantages and risks of freelance work in the field of literary translation and Małgorzata Różańska and Stefanie Stegmann will conduct a seminar on event management and program composition.

Sponsored by

TransStar Europe Project

Right after the Easter holidays the TransStar project will continue with new activities.

In this newsletter you will find:

Impressions from the TransStar Workshop in Krakow from March 25 to 28

TransStar and the Translating Cube in Ljubljana April 15 – 19, 2015

TransStar Participating at the Arsenal Book Fair in Kiev, April 22 – 26, 2015

Impressions from the TransStar Workshop in Krakow from March 25 to 28

Within the framework of our TransStar workshop in Krakow, we organised a reading by Ziemowit Szczerek at Villa Decius. With Magda Wlostowska as the facilitator, he introduced a very interesting book about the relationship between Poland and Ukraine: Przyjdzie Mordor i nas zje, czyli tajna historia Słowian.  [Mordor will come to eat us, or a secret history of the Slaves). The book deals with the stereotypes Poles have about Ukrainians. In general Szczerek presents a multifaceted view of (Central-East) European identities which very much reflects current developments. He also presented his book Siódemka [Seven], in which he describes a trip from Krakow to Warsaw along highway number seven, leading through the Polish province.

On March 28 the Polish-German and the Ukrainian-German groups offered an interesting program at the Goethe Institute in Krakow, which was based on their translations. In the first part of the program, the Ukrainian group with Constanze Aka, Stefan Heck, Nina Havrylov and Sofia Onufriv conducted a play-reading of works by Myroslav Dotshynez, Yuri Izdryk and Olexandr Ushkalov. The performance was just fantastic. And following this perfomance we realised that the connecting element was the excessive consumption of alcohol.

Afterward Marlena Breuer, Jakob Walosczyk, Katharina Kowarczyk, Magda Wlostowska and Olaf Kühl rapped texts by young Polish authors, including texts by Dorota Masłowska. The enjoyable performance had only one drawback – the spontaneous dancing afterward which had not been planned.

TransStar and the Translating Cube in Ljubljana April 15 – 19, 2015

From April 15 through 19 the Translating Cube entitled Poetic Transgressions will take place in Ljubljana. In addition to the workshops of the German-Slovenian, German-Ukrainian and Slovenian-German groups, events with authors on the exchange of literature and culture between Slovenia and other European countries are planned. The different events will be organised by TransStar participants.

On Wednesday, April 15, the kick-off event will be „Being Finagled and Crossed“ where TransStar participants will search for and discuss the similarities and differences between the Slovenian and Ukrainian languages. On April 16 the exihibit Camera Obscura – Places of Translation will be opened at the University of Ljubljana. Furthermore, the program will contain a reading with the Ukrainian authors Ostap Slyvynsky and Josef Winkler, an event on the Slovenian book market, a literary city tour and a concert by the group Jazzy.si. You will be able to find more detailed information on the events under the following link.

TransStar Participating at the Arsenal Book Fair in Kiev, April 22 – 26, 2015

The TransStar project will present itself at the Arsenal Book Fair in Kiev from April 22 to 26 with a performance by Ulrike Almut Sandig and the exhibit Camera Obscura – Places of Translation.

Together with Hryhory Semenchuk, Ulrike Almut Sandig will perform in the Night of Poetry on April 23. The texts presented at this event were translated by TransStar participants.

On April 24 the exhibit Camera Obscura – Places of Translation will be opened. At the opening event Ukrainian TransStar participants will present their translations together with the Krytyka publishing house and will announce the book to be released in August.

You can find further information on the project, updated regularly, under: www.transstar-europa.org or on our facebook site Transstar Europa.

Funded by the Program for Lifelong Learning
of the European Union.

The Translating Cube is funded by

Projekt TransStar Europa

Surely you are as excited about the dawning spring as we are, when TransStar Europe will again unfold a multitude of activities.

In this newsletter you will find:

TransStar at the Leipzig Book Fair, March 12 – 15

TransStar Workshop Meeting in Krakow, March 25 – 28

Continuation of „Camera Obscura – Places of Translation“

CD Recording of „Salt Water“ by Ulrike Almut Sandig with Translations

Translator of the Month

Call for Applications for Doctoral Scholarships on the „Politics of Translation“ in Germersheim

TransStar at the Leipzig Book Fair

This year the Leipzig Book Fair will take place from March 12-15. The EU-funded project TransStar Europe will present itself at four events.

At the event entitled Von fremden Höfen und knarzenden Brettern [of unknown farms and creaking boards], which takes place on March 12 from 17:00 – 18:00h at the Forum OstSüdOst, Hall 4, Stand E505, Daniela Pusch and Magdalena Becher will read urban poems and prose of Czech authors Alena Zemančíková, Jan Balabán, Ondřej Buddeus, Radek Fridrich and Jan Němec. The event will be moderated by Martina Lisa. On the evening of March 12 at Theater fact at 20:00h, contemporary authors such as Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Miha Mazzini (Slovenia), Milen Ruskov (Bulgaria), Goce Smilevski (Mazedonia), Vladimir Stojsavlević (Croatia), Faruk Šehić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Ivana Šojat Kuči (Croatia) and Sashko Ushkalov (Ukraine) will read from their texts at the event entitled Europäische Geschichte erzählen. Und übersetzen [narrating, and translating, European history], which is a cooperation with traduki. Some of the texts read were translated by Constanze Aka, Nina Hawrylow, Evelyn Sturl, Tjaša Šket and Anja Wutej of the TransStar Europe project. The readings are framed musically by Atilla Aksoj and Jelena Milušiđ.

On Saturday, March 14, from 10:30 to 11:30h, at the Forum OstSüdOst, Hall 4, Stand E505, Kateryna Babkina will present Videopoesie zu Orten des Übersetzens (video poetics on places of translation), which came into being within the framework of the TransStar project. Afterwards, she will engage in a conversation with her translator Sofia Onufriv on the interplay between places, pictures and texts. The event will be moderated by Schamma Schahadat.

On March 14 at 21:00h at Schaubühne Lindenfels, Martina Lisa together with Lena Dorn will introduce the Czech poet Ondřej Buddeus, amongst others, during the event called display.eu – contemporary poetry from the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia.

As a special supplement to the Leipzig Book Fair, on March 10 Beton International will be published in the taz newspaper. Beton brings together South Slavic authors and presents this edition at an event on March 12 at 20:00h in nato, which is located in Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 37. Evelyn Sturl, Paul Gruber, Maja Konstantinović, Vivian Kellenberger and Anna Hodel were the translators of this edition.

TransStar Workshop Meeting in Krakow

From March 25-28 the third workshop meeting of the Polish-German, the Ukrainian-German and the Czech-German working groups will take place in Villa Decius in Krakow. The groups will continue to work on their translations under the tutelage of Olaf Kühl, Claudia Dathe and Kristina Kallert.

On Friday, March 27, the Polish author Ziemowit Szczerek will conduct a reading at Villa Decius at the workshop meeting.

On Saturday, March 28, at 19:30h the Polish-German and the Ukrainian-German groups will perform at the Goethe Institute Krakow. Participants of the Polish-German group will present their translations of Polish hip hop texts while Stefan Heck and Nina Havrylov will stage texts by the Ukrainian authors Yuri Izdryk and Myroslav Dotshynez. More information at the following link: http://www.goethe.de/ins/pl/kra/ver/de14046075v.htm

Continuation of „Camera Obscura – Places of Translation“

With the beginning of the year TransStar participants have completed their texts and translations for the pinhole camera photos. The texts, translations and according photos on places of translation are now online. Furthermore, fifteen texts and photos were selected for a travelling exhibit which can be visited at translating cube events in Ljubljana, Tübingen and Prague as well as at the Arsenal Kiev book fair. The author of the idea for the pinhole camera art, Przemek Zajfert, has published the photos and texts together with the announcement of the exhibit in Ljubljana on his homepage. Here is the link: http://zajfert.de/camera-obscura-orte-des-uebersetzens.

CD Recording of „Salt Water“ by Ulrike Almut Sandig with Translations

Also at the beginning of the year the CD with the installation „Salt Water“ by Ulrike Almut Sandig was produced. In the installation the author together with Sebastian Reuter processed the short story and excerpt from the translations musically. In addition to Sandig’s installation the CD also contains the recordings of all five translations that were generated within the framework of the TransStar project. Those interested in acquiring a free copy of the CD should contact Zinaida Hasich (zinayida.hasich@student.uni-tuebingen.de).

Translator of the Month

This month you will be able to read an article on the translator Štefan Vevar under http://transstar-europa.org/stefan-vevar, who translates from German into Slovenian and amongst others has translated texts by Goethe, Schiller, Ransmayr and Musil. In April of 2015 he will be a guest at the translating cube festival in Ljubljana.

Call for Application for Doctoral Scholarships on the Subject „Politics of Translation“ in Germersheim

The department of Translation, Linguistics and Cultural Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germersheim has announced a call for application for five doctoral scholarships on the topic of „Politics of Translation“. The post-graduate students will work together in a doctoral research group. The deadline for application submission is 14 March 2015. You will be able to find further information at the following link: http://www.ftsk.uni-mainz.de/pdf/Ausschreibung_Politik_der_Translation.pdf

You can find further information related to translation, the project TransStar and the translating cube at http://transstar-europa.org.

Sponsored by
Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union

Projekt TransStar Europa       

Newsletter 04/2014

We hope that everybody had a pleasant summer; now we look forward to continuing the TransStar Europa project in fall of 2014.

In this newsletter you will find

Fall 2014 Events

Current publications

Project „Pinhole Camera“

Translator of the month

Diamond Cut – Literary translator contest in Poland

Fall 2014 Events

Lviv Book Fair

From 11 to 14 September the Publishers’ Forum, which is the most important book fair in Ukraine, will take place in Lviv. Despite the difficult political and social circumstances arising from the Russian invasion of the Eastern part of the country, Ukrainian publishers and authors are nonetheless determined to present the most important new releases and provide some room for literature with an extensive program of events. The EU project TransStar Europa will also be represented at the book fair in Lviv. On 11 September at 5 p.m. Maria Ivanytska will moderate the event titled “Translators Going to the Barricades: A Protesting Civil Society”. She will speak with Andrij Bondar, the founder of the information and translation service called eurolution, and with Claudia Dathe, the co-editor of Majdan! Ukraine, Europe, about forms of civil society protests translators are engaging in.

Translation Workshops in September

From the 24^th until the 28^th of September TransStar participants will meet for their second translator workshop. Under the leadership of Yurko Prokhasko, Amalija Maček and Claudia Dathe the German-Ukrainian, the German-Slovenian and the Ukrainian-German groups will continue their work in Stuttgart. The German-Polish, the Polish-German, the German-Czech and the Czech-German groups will meet in Ustí nad Labem with their workshop leaders Sława Lisiecka, Olaf Kühl, Radovan Charvát and Kristina Kallert. In Zagreb the Slovenian-German, the German-Croatian and the Croatian-German groups will meet and work with their leaders Erwin Köstler, Andy Jelčić and Matthias Jacob. While the workshops are taking place, literary events catered towards the public will be also be held.

Aller Liebe Anfang [The Beginning of all Love] – Translating Cube in Stuttgart

Following the last activities in Cracow this past January, the translating cube of the EU project TransStar Europa will now come to Stuttgart. From the 24th until the 28th of September authors, translators, performance artists and musicians from five different European countries will meet and with their performances will weave a web of European literary, translatory, musical and performative arts.

Judith Hermann will start off the series of public events on 24 September as she will read from her new novel called Aller Liebe Anfang [The Beginning of all Love] and talk with her Ukrainian translator Yurko Prokhasko about the reading of literature on this side of Central Europe and beyond. On 25 September the audience will travel to Poland and visit the renown Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. In her role as moderator Alida Bremer, an expert on the Balkans and herself an author, will engage in dialogue with Tokarczuk and talk with her about her thriller entitled Der Gesang der Fledermäuse [The Sound of Bats]. On the following day the audience will have the opportunity to discover the art of translation from a variety of perspectives. In addition to a Shakespearean translation performance by Frank Günther visitors will also be able to watch video poetics by the Ukrainian author and video artist Kateryna Babkina, listen to a translation installation by Ulrike Almut Sandig on her text Salzwasser [Salt Water], be able to collect spectacular questions about translation and will see photos made with a pinhole camera on the topic of “Places of Translation” by participants in the EU project. On 27 September the “boldest voice of the younger generation of the Ukrainian literary szene” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) Serhiy Zhadan and his band „Sobaky v kosmosi“ will perform ska music with poems about the everyday in Ukraine using a mixture of post-soviet mechanisms, ubiquitous corruption and a virtuous art of improvisation. The festival will be concluded on Sunday with a salon reading with Slovenian, Ukrainian and German participants of the EU project, moderated by the Slovenian author and translator Amalija Maček.

More detailed information on events, times and admission prices you can find online under http://transstar-europa.org/category/events/translation_cubes/ or http://www.literaturhaus-stuttgart.de/.

The project Translating Cube: Six Sides of European Literature and Translation is sponsored by the Federal Foundation for Culture, the Robert Bosch Foundation and by the Program for Lifelong Learning of the European Union.

Karl-Markus Gauss and Zoran Ferić in Zagreb

On 25 September 2014 Zoran Ferić, one of the most popular contemporary Croatian authors and columnists, and his translator Klaus Detlef Olof as well as the well-known author, essayist, critic and editor of the journal Literatur und Kritik [Literature and Critique], Karl-Markus Gauss from Salzburg will perform together with his translator Boris Perić. Gauss will also read from his novel Die sterbenden Europäer [Dying Europeans] for which he was awarded the Albert Goldstein Prize. The event will be moderated by Dr. Milka Car Prijić, the head of the Department of German Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Zagreb.

A Reading with Radka Denemarková in Ustí nad Labem

Within the framework of the second TransStar translation workshop an event with the Czech author Radka Denemarková will be held at the Collegium Bohemicum on 26 September at 8 p.m. During her reading and subsequent discussion the author will talk about her writing activities within the context of the current Czech literature.

Current Publications

In the August edition of the journal LICHTUNGEN more translations of the TransStar participants were published.

Kateřina Ringesová translated the short story The Concert by Michal Ajvaz from the Czech language. The Croatian author  Dalibor Šimpraga will be introduced with his short story called No One Else is Controlled translated by Vivian Kellenberger. Jakob Walosczyk will present an excerpt from the novel Insatiable Things by the Polish author  Andrzej Czcibor-Piotrowski. We will read an excerpt from the essay Lviv: Sequences of a Psychosis by Yuriy Izdryk which has been translated from Ukrainian into German by Stefan Heck. Anja Wutej, who translates from Slovenian into German, has translated an excerpt from the novel Love in the Air by Yani Virk. The excerpts are accessible online under http://transstar-europa.org/category/events/translation/.

Project „Pinhole Camera“

For several years the photo artist Przemek Zajfert has been working on an interesting project called Camera Obscura. The objective is to take pictures of interesting objects with a simple pinhole camera and as a result obtain artistic impressions. Inspired by his idea the TransStar team of  has asked project participants and workshop leaders to use the pinhole camera and capture a place they associate closely with their own translation activity. Very beautiful images have already been created and uploaded which you can look at online under http://www.zajfert.de/der_7_tag/archiv/index.php?/category/60. In a next step texts based on these images and on one’s own translation work will also be generated.

Translator of the Month for August and September

In August you will be able to read a portrait of the Ukrainian author Mykola Lukash which highlights his difficult circumstances during the times of the Soviet system. In September you will find an interview with the Croatian translator Latica Bilopavlović Vuković, who translates contemporary German authors such as Daniel Kehlmann, Ilma Rakusa and Zsuzsa Bánk into Croatian. In the interview she divulges her very own and unique process of translating texts. You will be able to find these articles online under http://transstar-europa.org/latica-bilopavlovic-vukovic/. The next portrait will be published at the beginning of October. 

Diamond Cut – Literary Translator Contest in Poland

The Goethe Institute in Warsaw and Cracow, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw, the Polish Institute in Berlin and the Department of German, Austrian and Swiss Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz are organizing a contest to find the best translation of a German and Austrian text into Polish. The contest is directed at prospective literary translators who have already published some of their translations. The contestants should choose two from four selected prose texts, translate these texts and send them to the following address: konkurs@literatur.pl. The deadline is the 15th of November 2014. Further information on the contest and texts to be translated you can find under www.literatur.pl. Winners will be awarded two fellowships, belletristic texts and publications in the electronic version of the journal RADAR.

Translators  in LICHTUNGEN

Kateřyna Ringesová

Katka Ringesová was born in 1980 in Planá, studied and worked in Pilsen and Regensburg and in 2011 she moved to Berlin. There she takes care of translations and lonely hearts in the online sector and is a teacher for children from German-Czech families (Mateřídouška e. V.). Translation enables her to discover beautiful pictures in seemingly simple texts and through the work with language she is able to find her own way of expression. The first step in this expedition has been taken, i.e., the translation of František Langer’s My Brother Jiří, others will follow.

Jakob Walosczyk

Jakob Walosczyk, born in 1981, translates from the Polish and Russian languages. He was born in Silesia and Swabia and has called Franconia his home for some time now. He nonetheless only speaks High German. Since he graduated with a degree in Slavic and English Studies he works as a docent for German as a Second Language and lives in Bamberg.

Vivian Kellenberger

Vivian Alida Kellenberger (born 1978) studied Slavic and Eastern European Studies at the universities of Fribourg, Bern, Moscow (RGGU) and Zagreb. She has translated for delegations of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia and worked as a translator for the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Bern for several years. Since 2009 she teaches Croatian at private language schools in Zurich and Bern and since 2011 she works at the Institute for Slavic Languages and Literatures in Bern, where she also organises readings with authors from the former Yugoslavia. Der Stein und der Hund [The Rock and the Dog]. Ćamil Sijarić (from Serbo-Croatian by Vivian Kellenberger). Variations. Literaturzeitschrift der Universität Zürich. „Diskontinuität“. 15/2007. S. 259-266.

Anja Wutej

Anja Wutej grew up bilingual, speaking Slovenian and German. She completed her university studies at the Department of Translational Studies of the Faculty of Humanities (University of Ljubljana) and after that studied at the Faculty of Security (University of Maribor). During her studies she was awarded a number of stipends (Erasmus, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) the Slovienian National Zois Stipend for talented students) and spent a semester in Lisbon and a month in Berlin. She also participated in different projects (translations for HALMA, Poetikon and the University Cultural Center UNIKUM in Klagenfurt). In her spare time she is an actor, a film director, singer and loves to do crafts.

Stefan Heck

Stefan Heck was born in 1987 in São Paulo, Brazil, and since 1990 he lives in Germany. In Tübingen and Warsaw he studied Slavic Studies and Business Administration. In addition to his main language, which is Polish, he fell in love with Ukrainian during a summer course in 2009. Since 2013 he is a research assistant at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Tübingen where he is completing his doctoral thesis on the aspect in Slavic languages.

For further information on translation, the TransStar project and the Translating Cube please go to the following link: http://transstar-europa.org.

Funded by the Programme for Lifelong Learning

of the European Union

The newsletter in the each of the languages can be downloaded here:

Ukrainian
Slowenian
Polnish
Croatian
Czech

Projekt TransStar Europa
Newsletter 03/2014

We hope that everybody had a pleasant summer;
now we look forward to continuing the TransStar Europa project in fall of 2014.

In this newsletter you will find

Fall 2014 Events

Current publications

Project „Pinhole Camera“

Translator of the month

Diamond Cut – Literary translator contest in Poland

Fall 2014 Events

Lviv Book Fair

From 11 to 14 September the Publishers’ Forum, which is the most important book fair in Ukraine, will take place in Lviv. Despite the difficult political and social circumstances arising from the Russian invasion of the Eastern part of the country, Ukrainian publishers and authors are nonetheless determined to present the most important new releases and provide some room for literature with an extensive program of events. The EU project TransStar Europa will also be represented at the book fair in Lviv. On 11 September at 5 p.m. Maria Ivanytska will moderate the event titled “Translators Going to the Barricades: A Protesting Civil Society”. She will speak with Andrij Bondar, the founder of the information and translation service called eurolution, and with Claudia Dathe, the co-editor of Majdan! Ukraine, Europe, about forms of civil society protests translators are engaging in.

Translation Workshops in September

From the 24^th until the 28^th of September TransStar participants will meet for their second translator workshop. Under the leadership of Yurko Prokhasko, Amalija Maček and Claudia Dathe the German-Ukrainian, the German-Slovenian and the Ukrainian-German groups will continue their work in Stuttgart. The German-Polish, the Polish-German, the German-Czech and the Czech-German groups will meet in Ustí nad Labem with their workshop leaders Sława Lisiecka, Olaf Kühl, Radovan Charvát and Kristina Kallert. In Zagreb the Slovenian-German, the German-Croatian and the Croatian-German groups will meet and work with their leaders Erwin Köstler, Andy Jelčić and Matthias Jacob. While the workshops are taking place, literary events catered towards the public will be also be held.

Aller Liebe Anfang [The Beginning of all Love] – Translating Cube in Stuttgart

Following the last activities in Cracow this past January, the translating cube of the EU project TransStar Europa will now come to Stuttgart. From the 24th until the 28th of September authors, translators, performance artists and musicians from five different European countries will meet and with their performances will weave a web of European literary, translatory, musical and performative arts.

Judith Hermann will start off the series of public events on 24 September as she will read from her new novel called Aller Liebe Anfang [The Beginning of all Love] and talk with her Ukrainian translator Yurko Prokhasko about the reading of literature on this side of Central Europe and beyond. On 25 September the audience will travel to Poland and visit the renown Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. In her role as moderator Alida Bremer, an expert on the Balkans and herself an author, will engage in dialogue with Tokarczuk and talk with her about her thriller entitled Der Gesang der Fledermäuse [The Sound of Bats]. On the following day the audience will have the opportunity to discover the art of translation from a variety of perspectives. In addition to a Shakespearean translation performance by Frank Günther visitors will also be able to watch video poetics by the Ukrainian author and video artist Kateryna Babkina, listen to a translation installation by Ulrike Almut Sandig on her text Salzwasser [Salt Water], be able to collect spectacular questions about translation and will see photos made with a pinhole camera on the topic of “Places of Translation” by participants in the EU project. On 27 September the “boldest voice of the younger generation of the Ukrainian literary szene” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) Serhiy Zhadan and his band „Sobaky v kosmosi“ will perform ska music with poems about the everyday in Ukraine using a mixture of post-soviet mechanisms, ubiquitous corruption and a virtuous art of improvisation. The festival will be concluded on Sunday with a salon reading with Slovenian, Ukrainian and German participants of the EU project, moderated by the Slovenian author and translator Amalija Maček.

More detailed information on events, times and admission prices you can find here or here.

The project Translating Cube: Six Sides of European Literature and Translation is sponsored by the Federal Foundation for Culture, the Robert Bosch Foundation and by the Program for Lifelong Learning of the European Union.

Karl-Markus Gauss and Zoran Ferić in Zagreb

On 25 September 2014 Zoran Ferić, one of the most popular contemporary Croatian authors and columnists, and his translator Klaus Detlef Olof as well as the well-known author, essayist, critic and editor of the journal Literatur und Kritik [Literature and Critique], Karl-Markus Gauss from Salzburg will perform together with his translator Boris Perić. Gauss will also read from his novel Die sterbenden Europäer [Dying Europeans] for which he was awarded the Albert Goldstein Prize. The event will be moderated by Dr. Milka Car Prijić, the head of the Department of German Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Zagreb.

A Reading with Radka Denemarková in Ustí nad Labem

Within the framework of the second TransStar translation workshop an event with the Czech author Radka Denemarková will be held at the Collegium Bohemicum on 26 September at 8 p.m. During her reading and subsequent discussion the author will talk about her writing activities within the context of the current Czech literature.

Current Publications

In the August edition of the journal LICHTUNGEN more translations of the TransStar participants were published.

Kateřina Ringesová translated the short story The Concert by Michal Ajvaz from the Czech language. The Croatian author  Dalibor Šimpraga will be introduced with his short story called No One Else is Controlled translated by Vivian Kellenberger. Jakob Walosczyk will present an excerpt from the novel Insatiable Things by the Polish author  Andrzej Czcibor-Piotrowski. We will read an excerpt from the essay Lviv: Sequences of a Psychosis by Yuriy Izdryk which has been translated from Ukrainian into German by Stefan Heck. Anja Wutej, who translates from Slovenian into German, has translated an excerpt from the novel Love in the Air by Yani Virk. The excerpts are accessible online.

Project „Pinhole Camera“

For several years the photo artist Przemek Zajfert has been working on an interesting project called Camera Obscura. The objective is to take pictures of interesting objects with a simple pinhole camera and as a result obtain artistic impressions. Inspired by his idea the TransStar team of  has asked project participants and workshop leaders to use the pinhole camera and capture a place they associate closely with their own translation activity. Very beautiful images have already been created and uploaded which you can look at online under http://www.zajfert.de/der_7_tag/archiv/index.php?/category/60. In a next step texts based on these images and on one’s own translation work will also be generated.

Translator of the Month for August and September

In August you will be able to read a portrait of the Ukrainian author Mykola Lukash which highlights his difficult circumstances during the times of the Soviet system. In September you will find an interview with the Croatian translator Latica Bilopavlović Vuković, who translates contemporary German authors such as Daniel Kehlmann, Ilma Rakusa and Zsuzsa Bánk into Croatian. In the interview she divulges her very own and unique process of translating texts. You will be able to find these articles online (here). The next portrait will be published at the beginning of October.

Diamond Cut – Literary Translator Contest in Poland

The Goethe Institute in Warsaw and Cracow, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw, the Polish Institute in Berlin and the Department of German, Austrian and Swiss Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz are organizing a contest to find the best translation of a German and Austrian text into Polish. The contest is directed at prospective literary translators who have already published some of their translations. The contestants should choose two from four selected prose texts, translate these texts and send them to the following address: konkurs@literatur.pl. The deadline is the 15th of November 2014. Further information on the contest and texts to be translated you can find under www.literatur.pl. Winners will be awarded two fellowships, belletristic texts and publications in the electronic version of the journal RADAR.

Translators  in LICHTUNGEN

Kateřyna Ringesová

Katka Ringesová was born in 1980 in Planá, studied and worked in Pilsen and Regensburg and in 2011 she moved to Berlin. There she takes care of translations and lonely hearts in the online sector and is a teacher for children from German-Czech families (Mateřídouška e. V.). Translation enables her to discover beautiful pictures in seemingly simple texts and through the work with language she is able to find her own way of expression. The first step in this expedition has been taken, i.e., the translation of František Langer’s My Brother Jiří, others will follow.

Jakob Walosczyk

Jakob Walosczyk, born in 1981, translates from the Polish and Russian languages. He was born in Silesia and Swabia and has called Franconia his home for some time now. He nonetheless only speaks High German. Since he graduated with a degree in Slavic and English Studies he works as a docent for German as a Second Language and lives in Bamberg.

Vivian Kellenberger

Vivian Alida Kellenberger (born 1978) studied Slavic and Eastern European Studies at the universities of Fribourg, Bern, Moscow (RGGU) and Zagreb. She has translated for delegations of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia and worked as a translator for the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Bern for several years. Since 2009 she teaches Croatian at private language schools in Zurich and Bern and since 2011 she works at the Institute for Slavic Languages and Literatures in Bern, where she also organises readings with authors from the former Yugoslavia. Der Stein und der Hund [The Rock and the Dog]. Ćamil Sijarić (from Serbo-Croatian by Vivian Kellenberger). Variations. Literaturzeitschrift der Universität Zürich. „Diskontinuität“. 15/2007. S. 259-266.

Anja Wutej

Anja Wutej grew up bilingual, speaking Slovenian and German. She completed her university studies at the Department of Translational Studies of the Faculty of Humanities (University of Ljubljana) and after that studied at the Faculty of Security (University of Maribor). During her studies she was awarded a number of stipends (Erasmus, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) the Slovienian National Zois Stipend for talented students) and spent a semester in Lisbon and a month in Berlin. She also participated in different projects (translations for HALMA, Poetikon and the University Cultural Center UNIKUM in Klagenfurt). In her spare time she is an actor, a film director, singer and loves to do crafts.

Stefan Heck

Stefan Heck was born in 1987 in São Paulo, Brazil, and since 1990 he lives in Germany. In Tübingen and Warsaw he studied Slavic Studies and Business Administration. In addition to his main language, which is Polish, he fell in love with Ukrainian during a summer course in 2009. Since 2013 he is a research assistant at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Tübingen where he is completing his doctoral thesis on the aspect in Slavic languages.

For further information on translation, the TransStar project and the Translating Cube please go to the following link: http://transstar-europa.org.

The newsletter in the each of the languages can be downloaded here:

Ukrainian
Slowenian
Polnish
Croatian
Czech

Funded by the
Programme for Lifelong Learning
of the European Union

Ukraine, Leipzig Book Fair and New Publications

TransStar March 2014

Reading for Ukraine

After the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, did not sign the European Union Association Agreement in November 2013 the political situation in Ukraine changed very quickly: after demonstrations on the Maidan in Kiev which lasted for weeks and a number of eviction attempts by the security forces, violence escalated mid-February and Yanukovych was toppled. On the first weekend in March the Crimean Peninsula was occupied by Russian army units in violation of the Law of Nations.

The occupation of Crimea is an attack on the sovereignty of Ukraine and the team of the TransStar project vehemently opposes this action.

We would like to express our solidarity with the democracy movement in Ukraine and with our Ukrainian project partners as well as our Ukrainian project participants. For this reason we will publish a poem of a Ukrainian writer and its German translation on the facebook site of our project, every day beginning March 10.

Please visit our facebook site.

Publications

Within days the pamphlet Majdan! Ukraine, Europa, edited by Claudia Dathe and Andreas Rostek, will be released by edition.fototapeta publishing house in Berlin. The book collects voices of Ukrainian intellectuals, writers and historians speaking on the current developments in Ukraine and their historical and social backgrounds. There are also contributions by West European politicians, sociologists and historians analysing the situation from their respective perspectives. Project participants of the Ukrainian-German group Nina Hawrylow, Constanze Aka, Sofia Onufriv and Stefan Heck were involved in the compilation and translation of texts.

March Events

Wednesday, 12 March 2014, 7 p.m.

Book Presentation and Discussion: Majdan! Ukraine, Europa

Writer Yuri Andrukhovych succinctly states: „When we stand up for Europe, we also stand up for our sovereignty. For human rights and for freedom. These are not merely fine words, but the naked truth…“ Eye witnesses, writers, poets and intellectuals from Ukraine have brought their texts together to produce a „historical document of the moment“ – a book which was compiled in a very short time which portrays personal experiences and describes the conditions of life in the country also taking history into consideration. The discussion with the three writers of the edited collection takes a look at the current situation after the occupation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia and accounts for the history of the relationship with Russia.

The reading and discussion will be conducted with Andriy Lyubka (author, Warsaw/Ushkhorod), Yevgenia Belorusets (author and photo artist, Kiev/Berlin), Andriy Portnov (historian, Berlin/Dnipropetrovsk) and Kyryl Savin (Heinrich Böll Foundation, Kiev)
Moderation: Walter Kaufmann (Heinrich Böll Foundation, Berlin)

Location: Heinrich Böll Foundation, Schumannstr. 8, 10117 Berlin

Events at the Leipzig Book Fair, 13 – 16 March 2014

On three consecutive days participants of the EU-funded project TransStar Europe read texts by contemporary authors telling their story of life in present-day Europe. It is a story about identity and homelessness, social dislocation, alienation, new beginnings, of borders and the way they shift or are violated.

Thursday, 13 March, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

TransStar reading at the Croatian Stand (I) – Surrelistic Stuff

Magda Wlostowska and Katharina Kowarczyk read excerpts from:

Return of the Old Komodo Dragon by Michael Ajvaz (Czech Republic) translated by Katka Ringesová

The Two-Gigabyte Stick by Yuriy Izdryk (Ukraine) translated by Constanze Aka

Bestiarium by Tomasz Różycki (Poland) translated by Marlena Breuer

Ballad(yna)s and Romances by Ignacy Karpowicz (Poland) translated by Katharina Kowarczyk

Location: Stand of the Croatian Ministry of Culture, Hall 4, D 402

Friday, 14 March, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Book Presentation and Discussion: Majdan! Ukraine, Europa

The Ukrainian authors Serhiy Zhadan (Kharkiv) and Oksana Forostyna (Kiev) will introduce the edited volume Majdan! Ukraine, Europa and will discuss the current  situation in Ukraine.

Reading and discussion with Serhiy Zhadan (author from Kharkiv, Ukraine) and Oxana Forostyna (author and sociologist from Kiev, Ukraine).

Moderation: Claudia Dathe, EU-funded project TransStar Europe (Tübingen)

Location: Stand of the Ukrainian Publishers and the Lviv Book Forum, Hall 4, E 506

Friday, 14 March, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

TransStar Reading at the Croatian Stand (II) – European History as Family History

Sofia Onufriv, Maja Konstantinović and Martina Lisa read excerpts from:

Zinandali by Myroslav Dokhynez (Ukraine) translated by Nina Hawrylow

Who gives a fuck about a thousand dinars now by Boris Dežulović (Croatia) translated by Maja Konstantinović

Germans: Geography of Loss (Czech Republic) by Jakuba Katalpa translated by Martina Lisa

Location: Stand of the Croatian Ministry of Culture, Hall 4, D 402

Saturday, 15 March, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

TransStar readings at the Croatian Stand (III) – European History as a History of Memory

Franziska Mazi and Maja Konstantinović read excerpts from:

The Teapot and the Chinese Emperor by Dzwinka Matiyash (Ukraine) translated by Constanze Aka

Gulasz z turula by Krzysztof Varga (Poland) translated by Melanie Foik

Roses by Stanja Hrastelj (Slovenia) translated by Tjaša Šket

Location: Stand of the Croatian Ministry of Culture, Hall 4, D 402

Sunday, 16 March, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Recounting European History – Literary Perspectives from Five Countries

How do authors recount their history in present day Europe? A history that is influenced by societal, social and economic transitions, by changing ideologies and indescribable individual fates. Their texts portray people in the midst of violence and indifference, alienation and constriction, confrontation and despair, generating a mosaic of European biographies in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Martina Lisa, Christian Nastal and Schamma Schahadat from the EU-funded project TransStar Europe will introduce Daniel Odija, read text excerpts and will provide insight into transcultural entanglements of the old continent.

Reading and discussion with Daniel Odija (Poland), Christian Nastal, Martina Lisa and Schamma Schahadat (TransStar Europe)

Moderation: Claudia Dathe, TransStar Europe (Tübingen)

Location: Forum OstSüdOst, Hall 4, E 505

Sunday, 15 March, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Book Presentation and Discussion: Majdan! Ukraine, Europe

Together with Rebekka Harms, a politician from the German Green Party, the Ukrainian writers Natalka Sniadanko and Serhiy Zhadan will present the book Majdan! Ukraine, Europa and will discuss the current political situation in the country.

Reading and discussion with Serhiy Zhadan (Kharkiv), Natalka Sniadanko (Lviv), Rebekka Harms (Brussels)

Moderation: Sofia Onufriv, TransStar Europe (Berlin)

Location: Forum OstSüdOst, Halle 4, E 505

Translator of the Month

In March of 2014 we will present a portrait of the German translator Andreas Tretner on the webpage of TransStar, who translates into German from the Czech, Russian and Bulgarian languages. You can find the article under the heading Translator of the Month at www.transstar-europa.org.

TransStar participants at the Leipzig Book Fair

Martina Lisa, was born and raised in the Czech Republic, studied History and German as a foreign language at the University of Leipzig. As a result of her numerous travels and extended stays working as a lector for German as a Foreign Language in primarily Eastern countries (Azerbaijan, Russia and Tajikistan) and as a result of her socialisation in the Czech Republic and Germany, being in motion and mediating between different cultures is a solid cornerstone in her life. Since graduating from university she regularly translates primarily scholastic texts in the humanities into German. By way of translating literature she would like to connect two worlds: the world of her roots and the one where she lives right now. Her latest literary discoveries are: Jakuba Katalpa’s „Němci“, Jiří Hájíčeks „Rybí krev“ Hana Androníkovás „Zvuk slunečních hodin“ and the poems by Ondřej Buddeus.

Magda Włostowska studied Political Science, East and South East European Studies as well as Polish Studies at the University of Leipzig from 2004 to 2012. During her studies she gained experience participating in a variety of internships and other activities, i.a. at the Heinrich Böll Foudation in Warsaw and in the research group „Pathways of Law“ at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the University of Leipzig. After that she worked at the Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe (GWZO) also at the University of Leipzig. Since 2010 she is a certified translator for the Polish language. Within the framework of the TransStar project she translates from the novel “Dzidzia” by Sylvia Khutnik.

Sofia Onufriv was born in Lviv and studied German Studies and Publishing in Lviv. For some years now she is a freelance interpreter and translator, cultural manager and mediator as well as travel guide (www.eol-reisen.de). She translated Yury Andrukhovych’s My Europe into German and Thomas Brussig into Ukrainian. She is a member of the translator association Translit (www.translit-portal.de) and lives in Berlin and Lviv.

Maja Konstantinović was born in Vukovar and in 1993 her family resettled in Bruchköbel, Hesse. She stuied Slavic Studies and Political Science at the University of Tübingen and currently she is completing her post-graduate studies in Literary and Culture Theory. In 2008 she was a participant of „Translators in Residence“, a project of the Slavic Studies Department of the University of Tübingen. In 2009 she gained her first experiences in translation by translating the supertitles of the play „Seven Days in Zagreb“ by Tena Štivičić which was performed within the framework of the theatre project called „Orient Express“ at the Stuttgart State Theatre.

Katharina Kowarczyk was born near Katowice/Poland and studied Polish Studies and Philosophy at the University of Hamburg. In 2012 her MA thesis „Analyses on Polish-German Literary Translation: Balladyny i romanse by Ignacy Karpowicz“ was awarded the Scientific Award of the Polish Ambassador in Germany. She translates from the Polish language and lives in Hamburg since 1989.

TransStar Translators of the Volume „Majdan! Ukraine, Europe“

Constanze Aka currently studies Eastern European Studies (main subjects: culture and history) at the Free University of Berlin. Previously she received a degree from the University of Passau in European Studies and worked in the world of cultural project management. Constanze spent one year studying and volunteering at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. She travels often, preferably in Brazil, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

Stefan Heck was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1987 and moved to Germany in 1990. He studied Slavic Philology and Business Administration in Tübingen and Warsaw. During a summer school stay in 2009 he fell deeply in love with Ukrainian. After his master’s degree in 2012 he started working as an assistant in the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Tübingen and began a PhD on the aspect in Slavic languages in 2013.

Nina Hawrylow Nina was born in Salzburg in 1988 and lives in Vienna. From 2008 until 2013 she studied Ukrainian and German Studies at the University of Vienna and the Taras Shevchenko University Kiev. In 2012 she conducted a socio-linguistic study in Kiev from which originated her final thesis. Since March 2013 she studies German as a Foreign and Second Language in Vienna.

Sofia Onufriv see participants of the Leipzig Book Fair.

You can find further information on the project, updated regularly, under: www.transstar-europa.org or on our facebook site.

The newsletter in the each of the languages can be downloaded here:
Czech
Polish
Slovenian
Ukrainian
Croatian

Translating Cube and more: The TransStar Europe project in the new year

Translating Cube – literary translation as an art

TransStar Europe has initiated the project called Translating Cube – Six Sides of European Literature and Translation, which takes a look at the art of literary translation and presents it to a broad audience. Starting January 2014 until the autumn of 2015, six series of events all dealing with the art of literary translation will take place in Krakow, Stuttgart, Ljubljana, Tübingen, Prague and Berlin, each lasting several days.

The first series of translating cube events will take place in Krakow. Readings, discussions and presentations on literary translation will take place at different venues in Krakow 16 – 18 January.

Yoko Tawada (Berlin) will join her translators Ines Hudobec (Croatian), Magdalena Lewandowska (Polish) and Olha Kravchuk (Ukrainian) on a tour of Europe and Japan on the 16th of January at the event called Where Europe Starts, where she will illustrate how ideas, languages and texts emerge from and merge with cultures.

An afternoon entirely dedicated to literary translation will take place on the 17th of January at the Goethe Institute Krakow. Ryszard Wojnakowski (Krakow) will speak about the asymmetries of translating into large and small languages. Translators from the EU-funded project TransStar Europe will show and comment on things that do not exist elsewhere for the audience. Together with the audience Yurko Prokhasko (Lviv), literary translator from German into Ukrainian, and Dorota Stroińska (Berlin), literary translator into Polish, will translate Goethe’s Elective Affinities, demonstrating the translation process starting with the reading of the first sentence in order to look for suitable formulations to the final completed text passage. In the evening Ulrike Almut Sandig and Marlen Pelny (both Berlin) will play and recite Poetry for Friends of Pop Music at the Małopolski Ogród Sztuki.

At the Café Czuły Barbarzyńca new German prose in Polish translation will be presented by TransStar translators on Saturday, 18 January. Presented will be texts by Peter Licht, Zsuzsanna Gahse, Jenny Erpenbeck and Svenja Leiber. In the evening Sylwia Chutnik (Warsaw) will read from her novel Dzidzia and will engage in discussion with her translators Magda Wlostowska and Zofia Sucharska.

You can find the entire program of Translating Cube in Krakow at the following link.

The project Translating Cube – Six Sides of European Literature and Translation is sponsored by the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Program for Lifelong Learning of the European Union and the Robert Bosch Foundation.

Networking Meeting of TransStar in January 2014

The first networking meeting of the EU-funded project TransStar Europe in Krakow will take place at the same time as Translating Cube. Participants will receive training on the basics of European cultural management. Part of the program is an introduction into cultural management by Antje Contius (Berlin), Amalija Maček (Ljubljana) and Alida Bremer (Münster); a workshop on the promotion of literature with Renata Serednicka (Krakow); a workshop on the cooperation between the publisher and the translator with Norbert Wehr (Cologne) and Alida Bremer (Münster); a workshop on the role of the translator on the literary marketplace with Ivona Novacka (Krakow) and a teamwork exercise on the preparation of publishers’ assessments under the tutelage of Kristina Kallert (Regensburg), Daniela Kocmut (Graz) and Claudia Dathe (Tübingen).

Publications

Current translations from the TransStar project can be found in the November edition of the LICHTUNGEN magazine. Magdalena Becher presents her translation of the short story Emil by the Czech author Jan Balabán. In Summertime War Diary the Croatian author Vladimir Stojsavljević shows the tristesse in Zagreb in the year 1991. The excerpt was translated by Evelyn Sturl. The novel Yugoslavia, My Country deals with the latest history of the Balkans by the Slovenian author Goran Vojnović, an excerpt of which was translated by Franziska Mazi for Lichtungen. With her translation Marlena Breuer introduces the phantasmagorical novel Bestiarium by Polish author Tomasz Różycki. The essay Levels of Lviv by Yuri Izdryk (Ukraine), translated by Constanze Aka, leads the reader into the Lviv of Eastern Galicia which has been totally disfigured as a result of an advancing epidemic.

Translator of the Month

In January 2014 you will be able to read a portrait of the Slovenian translator Janez Gradišnik on the TransStar web page. The article you will find in the section “Translator of the Month“ under www.transstar-europa.org.

Literaturhaus Stuttgart – our new TransStar Partner

Beginning in the new year, our partner Dr. Stefanie Stegman will be the director of the Literaturhaus Stuttgart. We would like to cordially congratulate her on this new position.

With her transfer the TransStar Europe project will gain a new partner. The Literaturhaus Stuttgart will thus replace the Literaturbüro Freiburg in January and in the autumn of 2014 it will host the next translation workshops and will be the second station in the Translating Cube.

The Translators from LICHTUNGEN

Magdalena Becher

Magdalena Becher (*1982) studied Political Science and Bohemian Studies in Regensburg and Brno. Following internships at the contact office of Bridge / Most Foundation in Prague and the Consulate of the Czech Republic in Düsseldorf, she works as program coordinator at the Czech Center in Düsseldorf since January 2012 and organizes events in different cultural areas (film, literature, music, theater, etc.) with a focus on the Czech Republic.

Evelyn Sturl

Evelyn Sturl (*1991) studies in Graz. After she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in „Transcultural Communication“, she continued her intensive studies of languages and cultures by continuing to gain a Master of Arts in “Translation“ in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Italian. Her initial curiosity about the Southeast European area turned into genuine interest, which essentially turned into a love for Serbo-Croatian. From her numerous visits to Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia as well as relevant internships such as her work at the Austrijski Institut (Austrian Institute) in Belgrade, for instance, her passion for the literature of the ex-Yugoslavian countries grew.

Franziska Mazi

Franziska Mazi studied Slavic and English Studies at the University of Basel with a focus on Southern Slavic Studies and completed a semester abroad in St. Petersburg and Split. Since 2013 she writes for a cultural magazine in Basel and engages in smaller translation activities into German and English. Since April of 2013 she is a member of the TransStar translation group for Slovenian-German under the leadership of Daniela Kocmut. Her current translation project is the novel by Goran Vojnović Jugoslavija, moja dežela (2012).

Constanze Aka

Constanze Aka currently studies East European Studies at Free University in Berlin, combining the subjects of culture and history. Before that she completed her Bachelor of Arts in European Studies at the University of Passau and conducted a little detour into the world of cultural and educational project organization. She spent two semesters as a student and volunteer at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and travels a lot, especially in Brazil, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

Marlena Breuer

After finishing her final secondary school examination (Abitur) Marlena Breuer (*1985) completed her vocational training in carpentry and worked as an instrument maker. Since 2009 she studies Slavic Studies at the University of Tübingen. In the course of her studies and within the framework of the project Textabdrücke – literarisches Übersetzen [Textual Impressions – Literary Translation] at the University of Tübingen, she discovered her passion for translating literary texts, first from Russian and later from Polish. In the fall of 2012 under the tutelage of Andreas Tretner the translation of a fairy tale, The Gluttonous Shoe by Aleksey Tolstoy, came into being and is waiting to be published.

You can find further information on the project, updated regularly, under: www.transstar-europa.org or on our facebook site transstar-europa.

The newsletter in the each of the languages can be downloaded here:
Czech
Polish
Slovenian
Ukrainian
Croatian

What’s New at TransStar?

Local Workshops and Readings in the Autumn

The first TransStar autumn workshop took place on the 11^th and 12^th of September. The German-Ukrainian group met with their leader Jurko Prokhasko in Lviv. They discussed translations of texts by Ralf Rothmann, Yoko Tawada, Silke Scheuermann and Felicitas Hoppe. The group let the legendary coffee house atmosphere of the city be an inspiration and visited events taking place within the framework of the Lviv Book Forum which also took place during this time.

Until December the other TransStar work groups meet with their workshop leaders in different European locations, amongst others in Bern, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Graz, Berlin and Dominikowo. The next workshop will be organized by the German-Polish group where they will meet with their leader Sława Lisiecka on the 28^th and 29^th of September in Berlin.

On the 25^th of November the translators of the Czech-German group will introduce the Czech authors Jan Balabán, Jakoba Katalpa, Michal Ajvaz and Alena Zemančiková in a reading at the Institute of Literary Translation at the Heinrich Heine University at Düsseldorf. Their working group will meet in Düsseldorf under the leadership of Kristina Kallert.

First Translations Published

In the September edition of the journal LICHTUNGEN the first translations of our project were published. You will read of the confusion of the German Lukan in Croatia in an excerpt from the novel Die Begegnung [The Encounter] by Ludwig Bauer, translated by Paul Gruber, you will find the poem Fick dich, Ginsberg [Fuck You, Ginsberg] by Katja Perat, translated from Slovenian by Daniela Trieb. You will become acquainted with a part of the Ukraine in an excerpt from the essay Hotel Ukrajina by Yury Izdryk, translated by Sofia Onufriv, and the short story Wie ein Obdachloser [Like a Homeless Person] by Alena Zemančíková and translated from Czech by Daniela Pusch, takes us to the post-war Prague. In the excerpt from Ignacy Karpowicz’s novel Balladynen und Romanzen [Balladynes and Romances], translated from Polish by Katharina Kowarczyk you will encounter Jesus and the Gods of Antiquity in the 21st century.

All About Translation

The website of TransStar has been online since May of 2013. You will find the site at: www.transstar-europa.org.

On this page you will find information on the project and the partners as well as notifications of and reports on events. A further column is dedicated to the translator of the month. On a monthly basis TransStar participants will introduce another translator. In this way a colourful mosaic of literary translators of Europe will come into being. In the month of September you will be able to read a portrait oft he Croatian translator Sead Muhamedagić who amongst others translated Thomas Bernhard into Croatian.

Also on our website at http://transstar-europa.org/category/blog/ you will find out more about theory and practice on our blog “all you’d want to know about literary translation”, where Janko Trupej in his latest article writes on Cicero’s, Hieronymus’ and Luther’s views on translation.

The forum area is accessible by participants and workshop leaders as well as by an interested audience: this is where one can exchange information on a variety of subjects related to literature and translation.

It is also worth visiting our Facebook profile. In addition to information on activities of our participants and pictures, you will also find a great number of current announcements for stipends in the field of translation and cultural exchange, for positions in academia and other transcultural activities.

Hieronymus Day on the 30^th of September

On the 30th of September we celebrate Hieronymus Day. It is assumed that the holy Hieronymus was born around 347 somewhere in Southeastern Europe. After his academic studies in literature and philosophy in Rome, he learned Hebrew as a hermit. Later he retreated into a monastery where he translated and compiled the biblical books. The total collection, translation and arrangement of biblical books by Hieronymus is the transcription of the bible later referred to as the Vulgate and is still today – at least for the Catholic Church – the authorative Latin version of the bible. For this reason Hieronymus is the patron of translators.

On the occasion of the Hieronymus day on the 30^th of September, you will find more information on the Internet about a little competition we are organizing underhttp://transstar-europa.org/wettbewerb-zum-diesjahrigen-hieronymus-tag/. Participate and win a wall calendar for the year 2014.

Publications of our workshop leaders in the last half year (selection)

Daniela Kocmut

• Zofka Kveder. Her Life. (Njeno življenje), (Novel) for the series Slowenische Bibliothek, a cooperation between the Drava, Hermagoras and Wieser publishing houses, March 2013
• Zenel Bejta Zeki. Dad so rovela? Oče, zakaj jočeš? [Dad, why are you crying?] (Poems, Publication in Slovenian, German, Romani) Literary Association of Maribor, July 2013 (Series Zbirka Mariborska literarna družba; 62)

Olaf Kühl

• Der wahre Sohn. [The True Son] Rowohlt, 2013.
• Witold Gombrowicz. Berliner Notizen. [Witold Gombrowicz. Berlin Notes] Translated and with a foreword. Edition fototapeta, 2013.

Alida Bremer

• Olivas Garten. [Oliva’s Garden] Bastei Lübbe, 2013.

Kristina Kallert

• Jiří Langer. Die neun Tore. [Jiří Langer. Nine Gates] Second edition. Arco Verlag Wuppertal.

Claudia Dathe

• Maria Matios. Darina, die Süße. (Солодка Даруся) [Sweet Darina]. Haymon-Verlag, 2013.

Matthias Jacob

• Zvonko Karanović: Burn, baby burn. Selected Poems. Izabrane pjesme. Translated from Serbian by Alida Bremer and Matthias Jacob. Drava Verlag Klagenfurt 2012.

Andy Jelčić

• W.G. Sebald. Prema prirodi. [After Nature] Vuković & Runjić, Zagreb, 2013.
• Robert Musil. Čovjek bez osobina 2, [The Man Without Qualities] Fraktura, Zaprešić, 2013.

Radovan Charvát

• Thomas Glavinic: Láska Carla Haffnera k remízám. [Carl Haffner’s Love for the Undecided]. Paseka, 2013.

Sława Lisiecka

• Uwe Johnson. Dziś, w dziewięćdziesiątą rocznicę. [Ninety Years Today]. OD DO Verlag, Łódź, 2013.
• Marianne Gruber. Stacja pośrednia. [Way Station]. PIW Publishers Warsaw,  2013.
• Tilman Röhrig. Tajemnica Caravaggia. (Caravaggio’s Secret). MUZA Publishers, Warsaw 2013.

The Translators from LICHTUNGEN

Paul Gruber

Born 1984 in Graz, he studied Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian to become a teacher. He spent a semester abroad and worked as a language assistant for German in Belgrade. His first literary translations he completed during the summer course of lectures in Permuda.

Daniela Trieb

She completed her BA studies in Slavic and German Studies in Tübingen, and her MA in Slovenian Studies in Graz. Her semester abroad was spent in Ljubljana. She participated in the summer course of lectures „Literary Translation Slovenian German“ of the ITAT Graz as well as the workshop „Literary Translation from Slovenian into German“ of the University of Hamburg.

Sofia Onufriv

She was born in 1970 in Lviv and there studied German and Publishing Studies. Currently she is a freelance interpreter and translator, cultural manager and mediator as well as travel guide (www.eol-reisen.de). She is a member of the translator association “Translit” (www.translit-portal.de).

Daniela Pusch

She was born in 1978 in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic and raised in Germany. In Marburg, Moscow and Brno she studied Slavic and Media Studies. Since 2004 she lives in Düsseldorf with her family. She works as a city guide, teaches languages and volunteers reading foreign-language stories to children.

Katharina Kowarczyk

In 1982 she was born close to Katowice in Poland. She studied Polish Studies and Philosophy at the University of Hamburg. Her MA thesis „Analyses of the German Polish Literary Translation. Ignacy Karpowicz’s Balladyny i romanse“ was awarded the sponsorship award by the ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Germany. She is a translator from Polish. Since 1989 she lives in Hamburg.

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