Collective residencies / Catalan-German Tranlation / Olot
KIRSTEN BRANDT
From Friday, 23 September 2022 to Friday, 30 September 2022
Bio
Kirsten Brandt (*1963) worked for three years as a book-seller, then studied Portuguese, English and German Philology in Germany and Portugal. In 1996 she moved to Barcelona where she worked as a literary agent and led the Foreign Rights Department at Quaderns Crema/Acantilado before becoming a literary translator from Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese to German. In 2002 she moved back to Germany.
Among others, she has translated Miguel Esteves Cardoso and Paulo Moura from Portuguese, Roberto Bolaño and Eduardo Mendoza from Spanish and Mercè Rodoreda, Jaume Cabré und Joan Sales from Catalan.
For her translation of Cielos de barro by Dulce Chacón and El secreto de la modelo extraviada by Eduardo Mendoza she was awarded the Translation Prize by the Spanish Embassy in Germany. In 2016, she won the V. Premio Ramon Llull de Traducció Literària with her translation of Incerta Glòria by Joan Sales.
Project
Together with Ramon Farrés, a translator from German into Catalan, I will lead a workshop for literary translators from Catalan into German and vice-versa, organized by the Institut Ramon Llull and Deutscher Übersetzerfonds.
Literary translation builds a bridge between two languages and cultures; at the same time, it usually is a lonesome job. That is why the „Deutscher Übersetzerfonds“ (DÜF), a German institution for the promotion of literary translation, installed years ago the „Vice-Versa“ workshops. During these workshops, translators from one special language into German meet with colleagues who translate from German into that language to present the translations they are currently working on and interchange experiences.
The vice-versa workshop German-Catalan and Catalan-German is the first one to bring together translators from these two languages. It is organized by DÜF and Faberllull. For one week, seven translators from Catalan into German and five translators from German into Catalan live together in the residence in Olot to discuss their work.
Among the translations they present, the genres vary from novel to poetry, essay and theatre.
Apart from the work on especific texts, there are sessions to talk about the general challenges each of the languages presents when being translated into the other.
And last but not least the workshop can help to find out how to promote the task as cultural intermediaries.