1999

American translator Joel Agee has been selected by a five-member jury to receive the Fourth Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize 1999 for his "outstanding translation" of Heinrich von Kleist's play Penthesilea, published in 1998 by Michael di Capua Books / Harper Collins Publishers. The prize, which is administrated by the Goethe-Institut Chicago, was presented to Mr. Agee by the German Consul General of Chicago, Michael Engelhard, at an award ceremony on Tuesday, May 25, 1999, at the Newberry Library. Joel Agee was also present at a one-day symposium on Translation Criticism in Literary Criticism at the Goethe-Institut following the award ceremony. (picture by Sharon Smith)

The jury stated that Joel Agee succeeded in rendering in dynamic blank verse Kleist's tragic story of love in a world governed by the rules of war in his translation. The translation is both gripping to read and masterfully rendered for the stage. Joel Agee has created a linguistic masterpiece and presented a new Kleist to the English-speaking world.

Shortlisted for the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize 1999 were Michael Hulse for his translation of The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald (New Directions, 1998) and Breon Mitchell for his translation of The Trial by Franz Kafka (Schocken Books, 1998).

Mr. Agee has distinguished himself as a translator of works by such authors as Rainer Maria Rilke, Elias Cannetti, Robert Musil, Gottfried Benn, Walter Benjamin, and Ernst Jünger. His translation of the major works of Friedrich Dürrenmatt is to be published by The University of Chicago Press.

An accomplished writer himself, Joel Agee is the author of Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany, a memoir of his life behind the Iron Curtain from ages eight to twenty. The German edition of the book, translated by Agee, was nominated "Book of the Month" by the Critics' Circle of Darmstadt, Germany, in 1983. His essays and stories have appeared in publications such as Harper's, The New Yorker, The Yale Review, and The Best American Essays (1995). He has reviewed for The New York Times Book Review and The New Republic.

Among Joel Agee's many fellowships and grants are a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986/87), a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1987), and a Berlin Artist Program Fellowship of the German Academic Exchange Service (1990/91).