Jon Cho-Polizzi
2024

The jury for the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize takes great pleasure in awarding the 2024 prize to Jon Cho-Polizzi for his translation of Max Czollek’s De-Integrate, published by Restless Books. We congratulate Jon Cho-Polizzi, whose marvelously confident rendering introduces English-speaking readers to a fresh and powerful voice with a vital message. Max Czollek’s reflections on Germany’s past, present, and potential future, as the country reckons with rising antisemitism, xenophobia, and racism, urges minoritized communities in Germany not to buy into the promise of assimilation as defined by the dominant culture—all too eager to shed its past—and to stop participating in a kitsch-filled memory culture, but instead to adopt a stance of resistance and embrace “otherness” while striving to forge a truly pluralistic society; hence the title De-Integrate.

Cho-Polizzi’s crackling, punchy language brilliantly takes up the challenge of the book’s many shifts in register (theoretical, academic, critical, colloquial), tone (sardonic and humorous to reflective and personal), and form (poetry, rap lyrics, newspaper/journal articles, speeches, statements). His buoyant prose, which manages to read both effortlessly and invitingly, captures the flavor of the original as it conveys issues of urgent current interest. His sparkling presentation extends even to the translator footnotes. Max Czollek’s book, in Jon Cho-Polizzi’s resplendent translation, is sure to linger in readers’ minds for a long time to come.

THE JURY

Jon Cho-Polizzi is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was born and raised in Northern California and received his PhD in German and Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley after studying Literature, History, and Translation in Santa Cruz and Heidelberg. His literary translations highlightthe polyphony of contemporary German-language literature. Jon lives and works between Michigan, California, and Berlin.