Translators

Mumbai, India
Target Language: Bengali, English

Born and brought up in Kolkata, Amrita Dhara grew up in an educational and home environment and friends’ circles where reading and discussing books, art, music, and history were an integral part of her everyday life. Works of Bengali, English, American, and European literature, be it in original or in translation, were a constant source of interest and passion for her, a window to new worlds and cultures.

Her interest in German novelists, poets, and dramatists that began in her mid-teens continued through the years of studying English Literature at Presidency College and Jadavpur University. This was reinforced to a great extent by her teachers at Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata where she was pursuing her German language courses till the C2 level alongside her academic studies. After completing her Masters’ Programme the recent graduate decided to pursue her love for the German language and become a teacher of German as a Foreign Language at Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan and has been in this profession since 2000 till this date. Since 2011 she also has been working as a project officer for German educational cooperation, in particular as part of the PASCH initiative.

Even though translating is not her main professional focus, Amrita Dhara took the opportunity to professionally translate a few contemporary German texts into Bengali and English as part of the cultural programmes of the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan on the works of the artist Günther Uecker and the “Städteschreiber” project (2006). For her, this was an enriching experience, which prompted her to continue on the journey of translation of German lyric poets and authors of youth fiction.

Kolkata, India
Target Language: Bengali

Partha Chattopadhyay achieved professional expertise in more than one field – and in more than one country. In 1983, he graduated from the University of Calcutta, where he studied Zoology. He moved to Switzerland in 1990 and earned a diploma in Computer Application and worked for a period of six years as a teacher and software programmer. Since 1999 he has been working as Head of Information & Library at Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata. He had also worked in the same position at the Goethe-Institut Dhaka, Bangladesh, for three years. The list of Partha Chattopadhyay’s literary translations from German into Bengali comprises well-known authors from German-speaking countries, among others Heinrich Böll, Wolfgang Borchert and Hans Bender. His translations have been published in various literary magazines of Kolkata and Dhaka. His Bengali versions of poems written by Bertolt Brecht and critical essays by Friedrich Engels, Werner Heisenberg, Hermann Brockhaus and others have been published in several reputed Bengali journals, such as Anustup. He took part in the project “Poets Translating Poets” organized by Goethe-Institut Mumbai as an interlinear translator and worked together with contemporary German and Bengali poets. 

Selection of translated titles:

• Bertolt Brecht: various poems
• Friedrich Engels, Werner Heisenberg, Hermann Brockhaus: critical essays
• Erich Kästner, Janosh, Gidon Horowitz, Agnés de Lestrade: short stories

From: Santiniketan, India
Target Language: Bengali, English

When Romit Roy's professional life was a piece of textile, it would be woven from words and notes. In addition to his work as an associate professor for the German Language at the Center for Modern Languages, Literature and Cultural Studies (CMELLCS) in the West Bengal city of Santiniketan, the specialist of German studies deals with classical Indian and Western music in different ways. For instance, he transcribes works by poet, philosopher, and musician Rabindranath Tagore from Indian into the Western notation system, and he composes music for orchestra, film, and theater.

Romit Roy attended musical training with the sitar master Prof. Debu Chaudhuri in New Delhi and with Dr. Harold Joseph, former conductor of the Delhi Symphony Orchestra. Romit Roy began his German studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he graduated with a master's degree in the German Language (1987) and a master's degree in German Studies (1990). Several scholarships and study visits in Germany, including a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), led him to more than one university in Germany.

The long list of his presentations and lectures includes titles on Theodor Adorno, Rabindranath Tagore, classical Indian and Western music, and various translation-related topics. His scientific publications and translations range from philosophical topics to literary discourses, such as those on Heinrich Heine, up to issues related to translation theory. Romit Roy is also broadly positioned as a lecturer for MA and BA students, teaching German as a foreign language, regional studies, translation theory, and literature.

Selection of translated titles:

• Christian Kravagna: Political Emotions, Emily Jacir and the Art of the Diaspora
• Ranjit Hoskote: various poems
• Clara Zetkin: various chapters of her works

Kolkata, India
Target Language: Bengali

His first translations in the field of German literature date back to 1997, when he translated some passages of the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller for the television program Doordarshan Bangla. Since then he has translated numerous works by German-speaking authors into Bengali, including Günter Grass, Bertolt Brecht and Ulrike Draesner. Subroto Saha learned German at the Goethe-Institut in Kolkata and in Munich. He later completed a teacher training program for German as a Foreign Language at the Goethe-Institut. Since 1994, he has been teaching German at the Goethe-Institut Kolkata, where he also trains German teachers.

He has been translating prose and poetry from German to Bengali since 1997 and has participated in numerous translation projects and bilingual programs for authors. Subroto Saha’s compilation of 223 poems by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1950-2015) has been recognized by the publisher Suhrkamp Verlag and the author as the most comprehensive and successful collection.

In 2013, 2016, and 2018, he was honored with an invitation to participate in the international translators’ meeting at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB), and in 2019 he took part in the first international meeting of poetry translators JUNIVERS at LCB as well as in the translators’ forum at Leipzig Book Fair. As a participant of the Merck Social Translating Project 2018, organised by Goethe-Institut Korea, he is currently completing the translation of the novel Die Welt im Rücken by Thomas Melle. In 2018, under his direction, the first TOLEDO translation expedition took place in Kolkata as part of the Cities of Translators project of the German Translation Fund and the Robert Bosch Foundation.

Selection of translated titles:

• Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Various poems
• Bertolt Brecht: Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner
• Rose Ausländer: Various poems

Kolkata, India
Target Language: Bengali, German 

As broad as Sunanda Basu's range of academic fields of knowledge and activity is, the list of her translations from German into Bengali and from Bengali into German is just as long. After completing her master's degree in Moral Philosophy with a focus on the philosophical direction Vedanta at Presidency College, Kolkata University (1961), she attended further study courses in preparation for her doctorate in Mathematical Logic as well as Indian and Western Philosophy at the Philosophical Academy of India. From the mid-sixties, she attended German language courses and completed advanced training programs as a teacher of the German language. This seems to have set her professional focus to this day. After working as a German teacher at the Goethe-Institut in Puna and Kolkata at the end of the sixties, she attended the teacher training seminar at the Ludwig Maximilian University from June 1970 to July 1972, where she passed the Great Language Diploma. She then worked full-time as a German teacher at the Goethe-Institut Kolkata until 1998 - a total of around 26 years. Sunanda Basu continued her engagement as an instructor of the German language and culture. So she continued to work part-time at the Goethe-Institut, but also at the Institute for Management Joka Kolkata and at other educational institutions. She has been a visiting professor at Presidency University since 2015.

Selection of translated titles:

• Günter Grass: Various poems
• Bertolt Brecht: several short stories and a selection of poems
• Hermann Hesse: several texts
• Sebastian Haffner: Die Geschichte eines Deutschen

Mumbai, India
Target Language: Hindi

Kamal Pruthi is a multifaceted artist, who is active as a performer, theater director, storyteller, songwriter, lyricist and literary translator. He not only translates literary texts, mainly children’s literature, into Hindi, German and English, but also performs them on stage. Active in the theater scene since 1999, he has so far directed six plays and performed in more than 300 shows in nine languages, i.e. Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bangla, Kannada, English and German, French and Gibberish.

Kamal Pruthi is also a lyricist who not only writes songs in German but also composes, sings and teaches them to school students and teachers. As an adjunct faculty for the German language he is part of the academic staff at Shri Vishwakarma Skill University in Gurgaon. In 2016 and 2019 he received the Rex Karmaveer Chakra Award in bronze and in silver. He took part in an international translators' conference and in an international theater forum both taking place in Germany. His translations also show a large variety, spanning from children’s books, films and serials to plays and dictionaries. He also translates into English and German as well as into languages spoken in India.

Selection of translated titles:

• Vaclav Havel: Drei Theaterstücke (From English to Hindi)
• Loriot: Sketche und zwei Theaterstücke (From German to Hindi and English)
• Samuelle Beckett: Catastrophe (Theaterstück) (From English to Hindi)
• Franz Kafka: Eine Kaiserliche Botschaft
• Volker Ludwig: Mugnog Kinder

Mentor
New Delhi, India 
Target Language: Hindi

Namita Khare graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, with a Master's degree in German Studies with specialization in translation. Later she attended various courses on offer at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies, Germersheim, Germany. She has been involved in the teaching of the German language, history and culture at Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi, as well as at the University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. As part of a project between the University of Delhi and Freie Universität, Berlin, she has translated shorter narratives of Hindi writers in German.

She is the co-translator of Herta Müller’s Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt (Kaanch ke Aansoo) and Atemschaukel (Bhookh ka Vyakaran). She is also involved in a translation project between Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Bergische Universität, Wuppertal.

Selection of translated titles:

• Herta Müller: Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt (as co-author)

New Delhi, India
Target Language: Hindi

Nidhi Mathur is a PhD research scholar at the Center of German Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts in German Studies at Doon University in Dehradun. In the year 2017 she completed her M. Phil. with her thesis entitled “Die Analyze der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung in Hermann Hesses Kunstmärchen”. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD in the area of German folklore. The working title of her work is “Mensch und Tier - Eine kritische Analyze der Mensch-Tier Beziehung in Grimms Kinder- und Hausmärchen”. She translates literary texts from German to Hindi.


Selection of translated titles: 

Elke Heidenreich: Der Hund wird erschossen

New Delhi, India
Target Language: Hindi

Pratima Shekhawat`s professional and personal interests seem to overlap to a great extent, namely theatre, literature and language. She gained her academic qualifications – beginning with M.Phil. and MA to an Intensive Advance Diploma - at Delhi University, where she focused on German Language, Literature and Translation. Within her academic project thesis,` the expert in the German language carried out comparative studies in connection with German classic literature.

Under the title Sufi Motives in Goethe`s West-Östlicher Diwan, she analysed motives of Sufi Poetries in the work of the author. Under the title Puntila and His Man Matti on Hindi Stage, she focused on the adaption and presentation of Bertolt Brecht`s famous play. Pratima Shekhawat looks back on a long experience in professional theatre and has not only translated English and German plays into Hindi but has also written own works: Her play Hamar Bubuji ki Chattri was performed by theatre group Act One, New Delhi, and in 2000 she wrote a Hindi serial Khabrein Khabardar for DD News.

Selection of translated titles:

• Harold Pinter: The Dumb Waiter (English to Hindi)

New Delhi, India
Target Language: Hindi

Shailesh Kumar Ray is a research scholar at the Center of German Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He received his Bachelor of Arts in German Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad and his Masters of Arts in German Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The working title of his Masters is “Analyse des jugendlichen Gewaltphänomens in Die Ausgesperrten by Elfriede Jelinek”. Shailesh Kumar Ray completed his M. Phil. in the year 2018. The title of his M. Phil work is “Die Darstellung der Protagonistinnen in Häutungen, Autobiografische Aufzeichnungen. Gedichte. Träume. Analysen. von Verena Stefan and Die Liebhaberinnen von Elfriede Jelinek”.

Currently, the academic with a focus on German literature is doing his PhD in the area of science fiction. The working title of his work is “Being and Becoming in Contemporary German Science-Fiction: Isomorphic Paradigms and Posthumanism”. Apart from his academic work he has also been associated with German to Hindi translation.

Selection of translated titles:

• Daniel Kehlmann: Bankraub
• Ilse Aichinger: Wo ich wohne

New Delhi, India
Target Language: Hindi

Before Shiv Prakash Yadav became a PhD Research Scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, he was involved in academic teaching for several years at the Centre of German Studies at the same university. From August 2014 to April 2016 he took remedial classes for M.A. and B.A. students, and from July 2016 till April 2019 he was guest faculty. From 2018 to 2019 he also worked as a language trainer at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Equipped with a Bachelor of Arts in German studies the graduate of English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad continued his studies at JNU where he gained his M.A. in German Literature in 2014. The title of his M.A. thesis is “Ein Porträt der Wohlstands-Kids der 90-er Jahre anhand der Romane von Christian Kracht FASERLAND und Florian Illies GENERATION GOLF: Eine Inspektion‘‘ (A Portrait of Prosperity Kids of the 90's based on the novels by Christian Kracht Faserland and Florian Illies Generation Golf‘‘). He completed his M. Phil in 2016 from JNU with the thesis entitled “Varanasi als Text: Auseinandersetzung mit der Stadt Varanasi in ausgewählten Werken der Hindi- und der deutschen Literatur” (Varanasi as Text: The City Varanasi in selected works of Hindi and German Literature.)

The PhD scholar at the Centre of German Studies, JNU, works on his PhD thesis with the title ''Erinnerungsliteratur und Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit'' (A Study of Selected Narrative Texts in German and Hindi), ''Memorial Literature and Reconstruction of Past'' (A Study of Selected Narrative Texts in German and Hindi). Hindi literature has been part of his M. Phil Thesis and also of his PhD Thesis.

Mumbai, India
Target Language: Marathi

Jayashree Hari Joshi studied German at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and taught German after receiving her MA.

She has been working at the Goethe Institute since 1996, was a program officer for twenty years, and since 2016 has been the director of the institutes' library in Mumbai. In her doctoral dissertation, she compared the alienation effect in epic theatre and in the Rasa theory of ancient Indian dramaturgy.

In addition to the Indian languages Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit, she is fluent in English and German. She has translated German poems and plays into Hindi, Marathi and English. She also writes poetry in Marathi, which is regularly published. She has translated plays, poems, short stories novels and children's and youth literature from English and German into Hindi and Marathi. Her book reviews and essays on literary topics appear regularly in printed or digital form in various national newspapers and magazines. Jayashree Joshi lives in Mumbai.

Selection of translated titles:

• Selected Poems of Ulrike Draesner, translated into Marathi with Aruna Dhere. Rohan Prakashan, 2019
• Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar: Das Uhreninstitut (saatleri ayarlama enstitüsü). Popular Prakashan, 2017
• Oya Baydar: Das Judasbaum-Tor (erguvan kapısı). Popular Prakashan, 2017
• Thomas Endl: Nikolaus und Nikolina. Pratham Books, 2012
• Klaus Baumgart: Leni und Twiek. Pratham Books, 2008
• Siegfried Lenz: Zeit der Schuldlosen. Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1989

Dombivli, India
Target Language: Marathi

Equipped with multiple language skills Milind Sant shares his knowledge since 2015 to present with students at R.A. Podar College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai, where he teaches the German language. Besides German and his mother tongue Marathi, he masters the languages English, Hindi and Urdu. Whereas he gained an academic diploma and certificates from Mumbai University in several Indian languages, he later studied German in successive language courses at Goethe-Institut Mumbai (between September 2011 and May 2012). A member of Goethe Society India graduated from Mumbai University with a Bachelor's degree in History (2009) and with a B. Ed. in History and Environmental Education (2018). Milind Sant also gained a Masters's degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in German Language (Translation and Interpretation). His translation of two research articles on Albert Camus has been published in a book titled “Albert Camus: Navya Kshitijancha Shodh”.

Selection of translated titles:  

• Bertolt Brecht: Über die Bezeichnung Emigranten

Pune, India
Target Language: Marathi

Mrunmayee Shivapurkar has been teaching German as a Foreign Language at academic institutions in Pune for more than a decade. She currently shares her expertise in this subject with students of the “Advanced Diploma” language course (level B2-C1) at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) and with course participants at the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Pune. In addition, she has professional experience as a freelance translator and interpreter as well as a translator at International Railway Sports, Pune, with a focus on English and German. Mrunmayee Shivapurkar herself studied humanities and linguistic at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). In May 2011, she graduated from her Alma Mata as best student of that year with a Masters of Arts in German Studies and with the distinction “Outstanding”.

Following her university education, the linguistically gifted graduate completed her German teacher training and certifications at the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Pune. Scholarships granted by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Institute for International Communication (IIK) as well as the Goethe Institute led her to Germany, where she attended advanced training, language courses and a course on literature and deepened her language and literary skills.

Selection of translated titles:

• Franz Kafka: Ein Bericht für eine Akademie, and various prose texts
• Max Frisch: Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter
• Iravati Karve (MA-DE):  प्रेमाची रीत

Solapur, India
Target Language: Marathi

German literature and poems seem to accompany Renuprasad Patkis from the times he visited Sir Parashurambhau College in Pune where he completed Higher Secondary Education in 2009 with German as a second language and a Bachelors degree in the German Language in 2012. He continued his German studies at Savitribai Phule Pune University and graduated with a master in Germanistik in 2014. In the same year, Prasad Patki passed NET Exam and was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship by University Grants Commission Delhi. He registered for PhD in Contemporary love poems at the Department of Foreign Languages at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, and submitted his dissertation in 2020. He shares his wide knowledge of the German language and literature with university students as well as with participants of languages courses at Goethe-Institut.

Professional activities among others include teaching German Language courses as a Teaching Associate and teaching Lyrik nach 1945 as part of the course “Trends in Literature since 1945” at the Department of Foreign Languages at Savitribai Phule Pune University. The list of publications comprises scientific articles, such as an article on German love poems - ''Liebeslyrik ohne Grenzen. Eine Analyse der Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen ausgewählten Liebesgedichten von Ulla Hahn und Kavita Mahajan'' in the online publication of the publisher Grin Verlag, München, as well as Marathi translations of literary works by German authors. A self-written German poem was published in the literary magazine Außer.dem (ed. p.l.o.t. e.V., Munich, Germany).

Selection of translated titles:  

• Bertolt Brecht: various poems
• Hermann Hesse: Wanderungen

Mentor and Translator
Pune, India
Target Language: Marathi

Sunanda Mahajan earned a degree in German Studies from the University of Pune. After completing her teacher training in Hyderabad, she moved to Mumbai and completed her Doctorate in Comparative Literature with a focus on women’s literature. Since 1984, she has been working at the University of Pune, where she holds a Professorship for Literature and Literary Studies. Sunanda Mahajan is the co-editor of a quarterly journal for translations that publishes Marathi translations of literary texts from various foreign languages. She has translated many texts for the mentioned magazine and other journals, primarily narratives, poems, and excerpts from novels and autobiographies. She was also involved in producing a trilingual dictionary for Marathi, Russian, and German. Sunanda Mahajan received support from the Austrian Exchange Service (OeAD) to spend a month in Vienna for the translation of Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Liebhaberinnen (Women as Lovers). She has received numerous awards for her translations.

Selection of translated titles:

• Bertolt Brecht: Der aufhaltsame aufstieg des Arturo Ui
• Judith Hermann: Sommerhaus, später
• Elfriede Jelinek: Die Liebhaberinnen
• Clemens Mädge: Im Stillen. Einakter
• Thomas Melle: Die Welt im Rücken

Sinharamulla, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Target Language: Sinhala

Workwise, Ashani Shalika Ranashinge returned to her Alma Mater, Kelaniya University, where she first studied German, Japanese and Art and later completed her master’s degree in Linguistics(2005). Since 2000 she works as a lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages at Kelaniya University. In her teaching she focuses on German Literature, reaching from works from the Middle Ages to contemporary texts, as well as on socio-cultural topics in Germany and German-speaking countries. In addition, the linguistically talented translator works as a visiting professor at the University of Moratuwa and at the Institute for Tourism and Hotel Management in Sri Lanka.

In 2021 she took part in the advanced training course Teaching and Learning German at the Goethe-Institut. A number of fellowships, including those from Goethe-Institut and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), led her to Germany, where she deepened both her language skills and her skills in teaching German. Ashani Ranashinge is also active in translating German literature, both in Sri Lanka and in Germany. As one of the participants of the Social Translating Project organised by Goethe-Institut Korea, she translated the novel Die Welt im Rücken by Thomas Melle and exchanged ideas with other participating translators from Asia and with the author during her work on the translation. Her expertise is in demand within her academic environment as well as in several free projects, for instance in the field of children's and youth literature or theater translation.

Selection of translated titles:

• Patrick Süsskind: Das Parfum
• Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarahs Schlüssel
• Sheila Hocken: Emma und Ich
• Thomas Melle: Die Welt im Rücken

Banasthali, Rajasthan, India
Target Language: Hindi, Tamil

Before she was appointed professor of German Language at the University of Banasthali Vidyapith in 2017, Dr Hamsavaihini Singh had already worked there as an assistant professor from 1986 to 2017. In 2009 she also received her PhD from University of Banasthali Vidyapith, which is considered to be the largest university for women in the world. The German studies specialist received both her first bachelor's and master's degree from Delhi University. She then obtained further academic degrees from Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu state. During several fellowship and study stays in Germany and Austria, she continued her education in the fields of German language and teaching. Her participation in a number of exchange programs and scholarships also led her to Ankara, Turkey, and to New York. Invitations to congresses and study trips to Germany and Switzerland followed.

As an Erasmus Mundus Fellow, Dr. Hamsavaihini Singh spent three months at the Contemporary India Study Center, Aarhus University, Denmark (2015, 2016). Awarded as the best translator into Tamil by the Goethe-Institut New Delhi and the German Book Office (GBO) she took part in the translation workshop at Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB). She works as a guest lecturer and speaker for the German language at several universities in India, but also in Germany and other European countries. In addition, she is significantly involved in the organization of study trips, international seminars, conferences and workshops in connection with language, education and literature. In addition to numerous publications, including as editor on topics of education and literature, Dr. Hamsavaihini Singh has translated a number of works by German-speaking authors.

Selection of translated titles:

• Peter Stamm: Friedrich Nietzsche
• Heinrich Böll: several short stories
• Jutta Bauer: Schreimutter

Chennai, India
Target Language: Tamil

Hema Mahesh's contact with German-language dates back to the 1970s when she took part in language courses at Goethe-Institut Chennai. Her further professional career to this day is characterized by an intensive exploration and practical conveyance of culture and language and has taken her far beyond the city limits of her home town. She first taught German at Goethe-Institut in Pune (1974–1981) and in Bombay (1982–1993) before she moved to Berlin in 1993, where she worked at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) for three years. The multilingual German teacher then moved to England, where she taught at various universities and also in companies. Hema Mahesh's understanding and awareness of cultural diversity are based on years of work experience in different cultures of India, Germany and England.

In 2010, Hema Mahesh returned to India and continued her professional activity at the spot where it all began: Goethe-Institut Chennai. Translations of texts and articles in German, English, French and Tamil form an essential element of her work. She has published three books, including her translation of the book “The White Woman in the Tree” by Dirk Angelroth from German into English. Most recently she worked on the translation of Tamil and German poems into the other language respectively as part of the project “Poets Translating Poets” organized by Goethe-Institut Mumbai. Her translation of a compilation of short stories by Tamil writer Chudamani Raghavan into German is expected to be published in March 2021.

Selection of translated titles:

• Dirk Angelroth: Die weiße Frau im Baum (from German into English)

Chennai, India
Target Language: Tamil

Lalitha lives and works in her home town Chennai. Since 1995 she has been teaching German at Goethe-Institut Chennai and works as a freelance translator. Her main language pair is English to German and vice versa, in which she has completed numerous translations pertaining to technical engineering related content. However, she also masters the French language and holds the diploma De la Lange Francaise from the Alliance Francaise Chennai (2006).

After Lalitha completed her diploma in Civil Engineering from Government Polytechnic For Women Chennai in 1968, she worked at Chennai Telephones for more than three decades – from 1969 till 2000. The book lover gained Großes Sprachdiplom at Goethe-Institut Chennai in 1993 and does literary translations from German to Tamil.

Selection of translated titles:

• Roland Schimmelpfennig: Vier Himmelsrichtungen, Vorher Nachher
• Felicia Zeller: Zweite allgemeine Verunsicherung

Chennai, India
Target Language: Tamil

Seralathan Pannirselvam has been working at the Goethe-Institut Chennai since 1996. He has translated several German poems and stories into Tamil and they have appeared in Tamil literary magazines, among others an essay on the literary works by Günter Grass.

Selection of translated titles: 
- Heinrich Böll: Das traurige Gesicht
- Erich Fried:  Selected poems
- Bertolt Brecht: Die Dreigroschenoper
- Franz Kafka: Selected short stories

Bihar, India
Target Language: Urdu

For MD Khalid social commitment and professional engagement go hand in hand. His extracurricular activities for instance include online classes with German resource persons Dirk Höger or Rena Gnoss on the topics of German language, literature and (modern European) history, and he organizes workshops for underprivileged children and students from marginalized sections of society. He is also a founding member of Ittihad Educational and Welfare Trust. In 2018, MD Khalid completed his B. A (Hons) in the German Language from Aligarh Muslim University, where he continued his studies in that field and graduated with an M.A in the German Language in 2020. Beyond lectures due to the official curricula, he also attended various lectures on different topics at his Alma Mata given by various foreign faculties. In his spare time, he likes to write poetry.

Allahabad, India
Target Language: Urdu

Aligarh Muslim University was established in May 1875 with an education system similar to the British model constituted at the universities in Oxford and Cambridge and was one of the first institutions of higher education at that time in British India. Mohammad Uzair graduated from this reputable university in 2019 with a B. A (Hons) in German.

Besides his studies, he also took part in many other co-curricular activities that took place at the Department of Foreign Languages. He for instance organized the fest Eur Asia-2017, coordinated several seminars and workshops held at the department and attended various programs related to social services, humanities and languages. The book lover also took part in a leadership training program organized by Aligarh Muslim University.
 

Burnpur, India
Target Language: Urdu

The Department of Foreign Languages under the roof of the Faculty of International Studies of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) offers B.A. and M.A study courses in five foreign languages, i.e. Chinese, French, German, Russian and Spanish. From 2015 to 2018 Sadique Raza Khan studied the German language at that department and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. The Training and Placement Office of Aligarh Muslim University organizes a large variety of workshops, including a Personality Development Workshop, of which Sadique Raza Khan was a participant in November 2017.

In the same year, the young student took also part in the seminar “No Future without Education” organized by Alumni Portal Deutschland in New Delhi. In the course of the program, he was also a member of the group discussion on “How to Achieve Quality Education for All by 2030” and interacted with different German Educators and Organization's Representatives. After graduation, he worked as a Customer Service Representative with Concentrix in Gurugram. Besides his mother tongue Urdu and German language, Sadique Raza Khan masters English and Hindi.
 

Aligarh, India
Target Language: Urdu

For his master's degree in German literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2013, Syed Salman Abbas dealt with the research subject of "Shades of Melancholy in the Post-war Elegies of Paul Celan". Prior to that (2010) he had already completed a master's degree in German at the University of Delhi and a bachelor's degree in English and Anthropology at the University of Lucknow. Since 2015 he has been working as an assistant professor for German at the Department of Foreign Languages at Aligarh Muslim University. Abbas can look back on a long career as a German lecturer. Since 2006, he has been a visiting lecturer at the following academic institutions: Amity University, University of Delhi as well as Jawaharlal Nehru University. His scientific contributions deal with topics of contemporary German literature and literary translations from German.

In addition, he was involved in the editing of the handbook of comparative literature (Handbuch der Komparatistik)for the publisher Metzler Verlag and in the revision of a book on the poetry of Paul Celan: “Jean Firges: Schwarze Sonne Schwermut. Melancholy as a creative and destructive force in the life and poetry of Paul Celan”. As part of various scholarship programs, including those of the Goethe-Institute or the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), he had the opportunity to bring in his experience and knowledge in the fields of German literature and translations from German and to share it with others.

Selection of translated titles:

• Elisabeth Langgässer: Glück haben
• Irmtraud Morgner: (excerpts of the novel) Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielerfrau Laura
• Silke Scheuermann: Vampire (short story)
• Sylvia Geist (various poems)
• Tom Schulz (various poems)