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6:30 PM
Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize + Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe
Award Ceremony|In celebration of translation
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Goethe-Institut New York, New York, NY
- Language English
- Price Free
Join us for our annual translation award doubleheader and help us celebrate both established and emerging translators from German into English.
Featured prizewinners Paul Reitter and Juliane Scholtz are joined by world-renowned violinist Eric Silberger, who will perform musical interludes composed by Craig Morris.
Paul Reitter is the recipient of the 2025 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. The jury, comprising Shelley Frisch (chair), Philip Boem, and Elisabeth Lauffer, stated: ''We are fortunate that Paul Reitter has now achieved the near-impossible task of translating Capital, Volume One, into what The Nation has lauded as “crisp and contemporary” English. Our jury has marveled at Reitter’s ability to retain the accuracy of the lengthy original, seemingly forbidding text, while rendering it an inviting and even humorous read. Together with editor Paul North, Reitter has brought us an extraordinary edition that also features a sweeping scholarly apparatus drawing on generations of scholarship and helping to make this new translation the definitive one for our era.''
Paul Reitter received his PhD in German studies from the University of California, Berkeley. For more than twenty years, he has taught in the German department at Ohio State University, where he served as the director of the Humanities Institute from 2012 to 2018. He writes mainly about German-Jewish culture, the history of the humanities, and translation, and in his own translation projects he has focused on retranslating and reframing texts that deliver philosophical critique and social criticism in enduringly exciting ways. His work has been supported by fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Juliane Scholtz is the recipient of the 2025 Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York. The jury, comprised of Tess Lewis, book critic and translator, Alta Price, translator, and Jeremy Davies, executive editor at Coffee House Press, stated: "The 2025 Gutekunst Prize jury unanimously and enthusiastically commends Juliane Scholtz for a flexible and dexterous translation of a passage from Judith Kuckart’s auto-fictional novel Die Welt zwischen den Nachrichten ("The World Between the News")."
Juliane Scholtz earned a B.A. in Physics and German Studies from Cornell University and a Master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. While at Cornell, Juliane twice received the Goethe Prize for the Best Undergraduate Essay Written in German. In 2013-2014, Juliane received the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Scholarship (CBYX) to study abroad in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Virtuoso violinist Eric Silberger is a prize winner of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2011. His performances have been described by critics as “spine-tingling…astonishing” (The Guardian), “dazzling virtuoso playing” (The Washington Post), “impeccable level of playing, a wonderful musician” (Heather Kurzbauer, The Strad), and “ ….he has got everything in his favour, technique, composure and personality.” (El Pais, Spain).
Eric received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. Mentors have included Glenn Dicterow, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Robert Mann, and Dorothy Delay, among others. He was also mentored by Maestro Lorin Maazel.
Eric plays on a rare J.B. Guadagnini violin from 1757 on generous loan from the Classical Connected, Inc. and the Sau-Wing Lam collection.
The Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York was created to identify outstanding young translators of German literature into English and assist them in establishing contact with the translation and publishing communities.
Featured prizewinners Paul Reitter and Juliane Scholtz are joined by world-renowned violinist Eric Silberger, who will perform musical interludes composed by Craig Morris.
Paul Reitter is the recipient of the 2025 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. The jury, comprising Shelley Frisch (chair), Philip Boem, and Elisabeth Lauffer, stated: ''We are fortunate that Paul Reitter has now achieved the near-impossible task of translating Capital, Volume One, into what The Nation has lauded as “crisp and contemporary” English. Our jury has marveled at Reitter’s ability to retain the accuracy of the lengthy original, seemingly forbidding text, while rendering it an inviting and even humorous read. Together with editor Paul North, Reitter has brought us an extraordinary edition that also features a sweeping scholarly apparatus drawing on generations of scholarship and helping to make this new translation the definitive one for our era.''
Paul Reitter received his PhD in German studies from the University of California, Berkeley. For more than twenty years, he has taught in the German department at Ohio State University, where he served as the director of the Humanities Institute from 2012 to 2018. He writes mainly about German-Jewish culture, the history of the humanities, and translation, and in his own translation projects he has focused on retranslating and reframing texts that deliver philosophical critique and social criticism in enduringly exciting ways. His work has been supported by fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Juliane Scholtz is the recipient of the 2025 Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York. The jury, comprised of Tess Lewis, book critic and translator, Alta Price, translator, and Jeremy Davies, executive editor at Coffee House Press, stated: "The 2025 Gutekunst Prize jury unanimously and enthusiastically commends Juliane Scholtz for a flexible and dexterous translation of a passage from Judith Kuckart’s auto-fictional novel Die Welt zwischen den Nachrichten ("The World Between the News")."
Juliane Scholtz earned a B.A. in Physics and German Studies from Cornell University and a Master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. While at Cornell, Juliane twice received the Goethe Prize for the Best Undergraduate Essay Written in German. In 2013-2014, Juliane received the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Scholarship (CBYX) to study abroad in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Virtuoso violinist Eric Silberger is a prize winner of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2011. His performances have been described by critics as “spine-tingling…astonishing” (The Guardian), “dazzling virtuoso playing” (The Washington Post), “impeccable level of playing, a wonderful musician” (Heather Kurzbauer, The Strad), and “ ….he has got everything in his favour, technique, composure and personality.” (El Pais, Spain).
Eric received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. Mentors have included Glenn Dicterow, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Robert Mann, and Dorothy Delay, among others. He was also mentored by Maestro Lorin Maazel.
Eric plays on a rare J.B. Guadagnini violin from 1757 on generous loan from the Classical Connected, Inc. and the Sau-Wing Lam collection.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATION PRIZES
Established in 1996 and newly funded by the Friends of Goethe New York, the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize honors an outstanding literary translation from German into English published in the USA the previous year. The prizewinning translator receives $5,000 as well as a fully funded trip to the Frankfurter Buchmesse from October 15-19, 2025.The Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York was created to identify outstanding young translators of German literature into English and assist them in establishing contact with the translation and publishing communities.
Location
Goethe-Institut New York
30 Irving Place
New York, NY 10003
USA
30 Irving Place
New York, NY 10003
USA
