Festival Neue Literatur satellite event and Friedrich Ulfers Prize 2023
The Festival Neue Literatur partners present the 2023 Friedrich Ulfers Prize Ceremony and the Festival Neue Literatur satellite event,
What a Way to Make a Livin': Writing about Work. This year’s Friedrich Ulfers Prize will be awarded to the literary translator and writer Tess Lewis. The Festival Neue Literatur satellite event,
What a Way to Make a Livin': Writing about Work, will feature readings by and a conversation among authors Dorothee Elmiger, Andrea Grill, Anja Kampmann, and Christine Smallwood, and will be moderated by Tess Lewis.
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About the Festival Neue Literatur satellite event What a Way to Make a Livin': Writing about Work:
In this conversation, a Festival Neue Literatur (FNL) satellite event, acclaimed German- and English-language authors Dorothee Elmiger, Andrea Grill, Anja Kampmann, and Christine Smallwood will read from their recent work and discuss
What a Way to Make a Livin': Writing about Work. Their conversation will be moderated by award-winning literary translator and writer Tess Lewis.
Dorothee Elmiger was born in Switzerland. She is the author of
Out of the Sugar Factory, Shift Sleepers, and
Invitation to the Bold of Heart. Elmiger has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Aspekte Literature Prize for the best debut novel written in German, the 2021 Schillerpreis, and most recently the 2022 Nicolas Born Prize.
Out of the Sugar Factory was shortlisted for both the German and the Swiss Book Award. Elmiger is an editor at Volte Books. She lives in New York City.
Andrea Grill is a widely acclaimed poet, novelist, essayist, and renowned translator from Albanian. She earned a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Amsterdam. She has often incorporated her research into her literary work, as seen in her 2015 novel,
Das Paradies des Doktor Caspari, and two of her children’s books,
Sam und die Evolution and
Bio-diversi-was?, which were both published in 2023. Her poetry collection,
Happy Bastards, was recommended by the German Academy for Language and Literature. Her novel
Cherubino was nominated for the 2019 German Book Prize. In 2021, Grill was also the recipient of the esteemed Anton Wildgans Prize. She lives in Vienna and Amsterdam. Beginning this November, Grill will become Deutsches Haus at NYU’s new writer-in-residence.
Anja Kampmann is a widely acclaimed poet and novelist. She is the author of
High as the Waters Rise for which she has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Mara Cassens Prize for the best debut novel written in German and for which she received nominations for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and the German Book Prize. The book was also a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award. Kampmann’s most recent publications are the poetry collection
Der Hund ist immer hungrig (2021) which was recommended by the German Academy for Language and Literature and awarded the Günter Kunert Literature Prize for Poetry in 2022 – and her praised translation of Ilya Kaminsky’s
Deaf Republic. Kampmann was most recently a fellow of the German Literature Fund, and is currently working on her second novel, forthcoming in 2024, as well as her first piece of music. The Bavarian Academy of fine arts rewarded her with the Rainer Malkowski prize for "(...) a voice in which the language of poetry is always palpable, even in prose."
Christine Smallwood is the author of the novel
The Life of the Mind, which
Time magazine named one of the top ten fiction books of 2021. She has written for many publications, including
Harper's, The New York Review of Books, Bookforum, The New Yorker, and
The New York Times Magazine. In 2023, she received the Anthony Veasna So Fiction Prize from n+1 and a work-in-progress grant from the Silvers Foundation. Her short book on Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman,
La Captive, is forthcoming from Fireflies Press.
Tess Lewis (moderator) is a translator from French and German. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Walter Benjamin, Lutz Seiler, Jonas Lüscher, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and Montaigne. Her translation of Maja Haderlap’s
Angel of Oblivion won the ACFNY Translation Prize and the 2017 PEN Translation Award. She is a Guggenheim and Berlin Prize Fellow.
About the Friedrich Ulfers Prize 2023:
The moderated conversation
What a Way to Make a Livin': Writing about Work will be preceded by the 2023 Friedrich Ulfers Prize ceremony. This year’s prize will be awarded to the literary translator and writer Tess Lewis. The laudation will be delivered by Andrea Grill. Professor Friedrich Ulfers (NYU) will provide short remarks.
Tess Lewis (moderator) is a translator from French and German. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Walter Benjamin, Lutz Seiler, Jonas Lüscher, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and Montaigne. Her translation of Maja Haderlap’s
Angel of Oblivion won the ACFNY Translation Prize and the 2017 PEN Translation Award. A Guggenheim and Berlin Prize fellow and an American Library in Paris Scholar of Note, she is an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review and co-curator of the Festival Neue Literatur, New York City’s annual festival of German language literature in English.
Andrea Grill is a widely acclaimed poet, novelist, essayist, and renowned translator from Albanian. She earned a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Amsterdam. She has often incorporated her research into her literary work, as seen in her 2015 novel,
Das Paradies des Doktor Caspari, and two of her children’s books,
Sam und die Evolution and
Bio-diversi-was?, which were both published in 2023. Her poetry collection,
Happy Bastards was recommended by the German Academy for Language and Literature. Her novel
Cherubino was nominated for the 2019 German Book Prize. The book charts the relationships and career trajectory of a 39-year-old mezzo soprano who, whilst pregnant, makes her debut as Cherubino in Mozart’s
Le nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. In 2021, Grill was also the recipient of the esteemed Anton Wildgans Prize. She lives in Vienna and Amsterdam. Beginning this November, Grill will become Deutsches Haus at NYU’s new writer-in-residence.
The
Friedrich Ulfers Prize was established in 2013 and is awarded annually by Deutsches Haus at New York University to a leading publisher, writer, critic, translator, or scholar who has championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States. The prize, which is endowed with a $5000 grant, has previously been awarded to Riky Stock, Jill Schoolman, Susan Bernofsky, Barbara Perlmutter, Barbara Epler, Burton Pike, Robert Weil, Sara Bershtel, and Carol Brown Janeway. The Friedrich Ulfers Prize is Festival Neue Literatur’s testimony to the rising importance of German-language literature in America.
Friedrich Ulfers is Associate Professor of German at New York University. In the past, he also served as Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Science, the German Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of the NYU in Berlin Summer Program, and Director of Deutsches Haus at NYU. The recipient of NYU's Distinguished Teaching Medal and Great Teacher Award, and two-time winner of the College of Arts and Science's Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching, Ulfers has taught not only in the German Department but also in NYU's interdisciplinary programs, offering courses that engage a range of interests, including literary theory, continental philosophy, and the relationships between science, literature, and philosophy. Friedrich Ulfers also served as a professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he taught an intensive summer seminar on Nietzsche and 20th/21st Century Thought and gave a variety of lectures. From 2006-2009, he was Dean of the Media and Communications Division of the School, and in 2009, he was appointed Professor Emeritus. Friedrich Ulfers received the Heights College’s Faculty Hall of Fame Award and the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) for his commitment to German-American relations in the areas of culture and education.
About Festival Neue Literatur:
Festival Neue Literatur (FNL) was established in 2009 as a collaborative project of New York’s leading German-language cultural institutions, i.e. The Austrian Cultural Forum New York; the German Consulate General New York; the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York; Columbia University School of the Arts; Deutsches Haus at NYU; and the Goethe-Institut New York. Festival Neue Literatur is the first and only festival to spotlight German-language and U.S fiction together and is proud to provide New York audiences with access to exciting new literature from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the U.S.
What a Way to Make a Livin': Writing about Work is presented with additional support from the German Federal Foreign Office, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Federal Chancellery of Austria.
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