Translating A Past That Haunts The Present November 17, 2010

Acclaimed authors Jenny Erpenbeck and Philippe Claudel join their American translators, Susan Bernofsky and John Cullen, to discuss the delicate art of fictionalizing the fraught history of Germany and France during WWII in their novels Visitation and Brodeck and the translation of this history into English. The audience will be invited to try its hand at selected translation problems as well. Moderated by Susan Bernofsky, MFA Program in Writing and Translation, Queens College. This program is part of the 2010 New Literature from Europe festival (a joint event organized by eight European cultural institutes in New York, including the Goethe-Institut New York and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, co-sponsors of this event).