2006

Translator Susan Bernofsky was selected by a five-member jury as the recipient of the 2006 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for her exceptional translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s The Old Child & Other Stories (Geschichte vom alten Kind), which was published in 2005 by New Directions. The prize, which is administered by the Goethe-Institut Chicago, was presented to Susan Bernofsky by the German Consul General of Chicago Wolfgang Drautz at an award ceremony held on Monday, June 5, 2006 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, Chicago.

Rainer Schulte (Dallas) served as chairman of the jury, which also consisted of Renate Latimer (Atlanta), Susan Harris (Chicago), Denis Scheck (Cologne) and Krishna Winston (Middletown, CT).

The jury said that “Susan Bernofsky’s translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s The Old Child & Other Stories catches not only the semantic content of the work but also the subtle rhythms of the prose – with amazing ease, she has transformed the energy of the German language into an at once delicate and powerful English. Her ear has picked up the nuances of the original, enabling her to recreate Erpenbeck’s dense and explosive style in a compelling and fascinating English rendition.”

Susan Bernofsky received her PhD in Comparative Literature, from Princeton University, where she wrote her dissertation on “Writing the Foreign: Studies in German Romantic Translation.” Her MFA in Fiction Writing was awarded by Washington University, St. Louis. She has also studied at University of Zürich, Switzerland, University of Münster, Germany, and at Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Bernofsky has been an instructor at Princeton University, an Assistant Professor at Bard College and is currently a Research Scholar in the Humanities at Bard College.

She has translated contemporary and classical fiction by Robert Walser, Herman Hesse and Ludwig Harig. Susan Bernofsky has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and translation prizes, including: American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 2005-2006; PEN Translation Fund Award, 2005; an Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 1997; a Federal Chancellor Fellowship (Bundeskanzlerstipendium), Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, 1995-96; a National Endowment for the Arts Translator’s Fellowship, 1991-92; a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 1990-91, 1993-94, 1997; an Olin Fellowship, Washington University, 1988-90; and a Swiss Universities Grant (administered by the Fulbright Association), 1987-88. She is a member of the PEN American Center. In 2005, Susan Bernofsky published a book with Detroit: Wayne State University Press, entitled, Foreign Words: Translator-Authors in the Age of Goethe. Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies.