The annual Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize is awarded each spring to honor an outstanding literary translation from German into English published in the USA the previous year. The translator of the winning translation will receive US $10,000. The prize was established in 1996 and was administered by the Goethe-Institut Chicago until 2014. Funded by the German government, the Prize has been administered by the Goethe-Institut New York since 2015.
Jury Chair Shelley Frisch provided the following statement: "The jury is pleased to announce this year’s shortlist for the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize. With our planet beset by unparalleled medical, political, and environmental challenges, many of us are looking to literature more than ever as a means of moving beyond our quotidian realities.
This shortlist features a panoply of subjects—from a sweeping regional history to a doctor tracking a medical enigma, from a fresh approach to a canonical novel to an intriguing chapter in the life of a canonical writer to a haunting portrait of an imprisoned revolutionary—all brought together here by their sparkling translations into English.
We congratulate translators Joel Agee, Philip Boehm, David Dollenmayer, and Elizabeth Janik on their stellar work, and invite readers to delve into the intriguing and engaging works they have recreated. In May we will be announcing the winner of the prize, so stay tuned!"
Jury: Shelley Frisch (Chair), Bettina Abarbanell, John Hargraves, Susan Harris, Damion Searls
| Year | Recipients |
| 2019 | Damion Searls for Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl von Uwe Johnson (New York Review Books) |
| 2018 | Isabel Fargo Cole for Old Rendering Plant by Wolfgang Hilbig (Two Lines Press) |
| 2017 | Charlotte Collins for A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) |
| 2016 | Daniel Bowles for Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas by Christian Kracht (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) |
| 2015 | Catherine Schelbert for Flametti, or The Dandyism of the Poor by Hugo Ball (Wakefield Press) |
| 2014 | Shelley Frisch for Kafka: The Years of Insight by Reiner Stach (Princeton University Press) |
| 2013 | Philip Boehm for An Ermine in Czernopol by Gregor von Rezzori (New York Review Books) |
| 2012 | Burton Pike for Isle of the Dead by Gerhard Meier (Dalkey Archive Press) |
| 2011 | Jean M. Snook for The Distand Sound by Gert Jonke (Dalkey Archive Press) |
| 2010 | Ross Benjamin for Speak, Nabokov by Michael Maar (Verso) |
| 2009 | John Hargraves for The Executor – A Comedy of Letters by Michael Krüger (Harcourt) |
| 2008 | David Dollenmeyer for Childhood. An Autobiographical Fragment by Moses Rosenkranz (Syracuse University Press) |
| 2007 | Peter Constantine for The Bird is a Raven by Benjamin Lebert (Knopf) |
| 2006 | Susan Bernofsky for The Old Child & Other Stories by Jenny Erpenbeck (New Directions) |
| 2005 | Michael Henry Heim for Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (Ecco) |
| 2004 | Breon Mitchell for Morenga by Uwe Timm (New Directions) |
| 2003 | Margot Bettauer Dembo for Summerhouse, later by Judith Hermann (Ecco) |
| 2002 | Anthea Bell for Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald (Random House) |
| 2001 | Krishna Winston for Too Far Afield by Günter Grass (Harcourt) |
| 2000 | Michael Hofmann for Rebellion by Joseph Roth (St. Martin's Press) |
| 1999 | Joel Agee for Penthesilia by Heinrich von Kleist (HarperCollins) |
| 1998 | John Brownjohn for Heroes Like Us by Thomas Brussig (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) |
| 1997 | Leila Vennewitz for Jacob the Liar by Jurek Becker (Arcade Publishing) |
| 1996 | John E. Woods for The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (Knopf) and Nobodaddy's Children by Arno Schmidt (Dalkey Archive Press) |
Kurt Wolff, joined later by his wife Helen, was one of the most outstanding and innovative publishers in Germany of the 1920s. Helen and Kurt Wolff immigrated to New York in 1941, and founded Pantheon Books, a publishing house devoted mainly to the translation of German and other European literature. Herman Broch, Stefan George and Robert Musil were among the authors they published. In 1961 the couple joined the firm Harcourt Brace Jovanovich where they became co-publishers with their own imprint "Helen and Kurt Wolff Books". Kurt Wolff died on October 21, 1963. Upon her husband's death, Helen Wolff continued to work with authors on the Wolff list, expanding it to include Karl Jaspers, Walter Benjamin, Uwe Johnson, Günter Grass, Max Frisch, Jurek Becker, Hans Joachim Schädlich, and many others.
Helen Wolff was recognized for her work with an Inter Nationes Award, the Goethe-Medaille, and honorary doctorates from Mount Holyoke, Smith College and Dartmouth College. In 1994 she was awarded the Friedrich Gundolf Prize by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Literature) for her promotion of German culture in the USA, and for making German literature accessible to American readers. Helen Wolff died on March 28, 1994.
Helen Wolff was recognized for her work with an Inter Nationes Award, the Goethe-Medaille, and honorary doctorates from Mount Holyoke, Smith College and Dartmouth College. In 1994 she was awarded the Friedrich Gundolf Prize by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Literature) for her promotion of German culture in the USA, and for making German literature accessible to American readers. Helen Wolff died on March 28, 1994.