2002

Translator Anthea Bell has been selected by a five-member jury as the recipient of the 2002 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for her exceptional translation of W.G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz, which was published last year by Random House. The prize, which is administered by the Goethe-Institut Chicago, was presented to Ms. Bell by the German Consul General of Chicago at an award ceremony on Monday, June 3, 2002, at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago.
Michael Heim (Los Angeles) served as chairman of the jury, which also consisted of Susanne Hoebel (Hamburg), Burton Pike (New York), Krishna Winston (Middletown, CT) and John. E. Woods (La Mesa, CA).

The jury commended Ms. Bell on her unique ability to ”bring the richness of the German text into a correspondingly rich English” and, in addressing the complexity of Sebald’s language- rather than event-driven novel, remarked that the translator had ”accomplished what might seem impossible: she has enabled us to suspend our disbelief and feel that while we are reading English—real English—we are also reading German.”

Anthea Bell was born in Suffolk, was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, and has worked as a translator for a number of years, primarily from German and French. Her translations include works of non-fiction (biography, politics, social history, musicology and art history), literary and popular fiction, and books for young people including classic German works by the Brothers Grimm, Clemens Brentano, Wilhelm Hauff and Christian Morgenstern. Recent translations include E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Life and Times of Tomcat Murr (1999; Penguin Classics) and Lilian Faschinger’s Vienna Passion (2000; Review). Ms. Bell has also served on the committee of the Translators‘ Association and the jury panel of the Schlegel-Tieck German translation prize in Great Britain. She has been the recipient of a number of translation prizes and awards, among them the 1987 Schlegel-Tieck Award for Hans Berman’s The Stone and the Flute (Viking) and the first Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation for Christine Nöstlinger’s A Dog’s Life (Andersen Press). She lives in Cambridge and has two adult sons.

Honorable Mention was awarded to Michael Ritterson for his translation of Wilhelm Raabe’s novel The Odin Field (2001; Camden House), in which the jury noted Mr. Ritterson’s adept rendering of the author’s wry, almost morbid humor and particularly commended him for “tackling a fine work of an author virtually unknown here.”

Jury Members:
Michael Heim, Chairman
Susanne Höbel
Krishna Winston
John E. Woods