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Online, 2 July 2021

This Encounter between author Mascha Dabić and translator Leigh Bailey focused on the novel Reibungsverluste (2017), which deals the experiences of a translator and interpreter for refugees and asylum seekers. Mascha Dabic read from her debut novel, and discussed the text with Leigh Bailey, who has translated selected passages from the work, and Godela Weiss-Sussex. The theme of translation is thus central to the discussion of the novel and to the work of the translator who has transposed the text from German to English.  

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Born in Sarajevo, Mascha Dabić studied Translation (English/Russian) and works as an interpreter and journalist in the field of asylum and migration, whilst lecturing at the Universities of Innsbruck and Vienna. Dabić also translates literature by Balkan authors such as Barbi Marković’s Ausgehen (Suhrkamp). Her novel Reibungsverluste was nominated for the Franz-Tumler-Literaturpreis and shortlisted for the Österreichische Buchpreis Debut Novel award in 2017. She lives in Vienna

Leigh Bailey has had a career as university lecturer in English, Translation Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, producer and presenter for Radio Austria International, and exhibition curator (co-curating exhibitions on Beethoven, Mozart and Johann Strauss II among others). As a translator, he has provided the English texts for organisations such as the Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra and the Literaturhaus Vienna. In 2017 he published the first full-length biography of the youngest of the three brothers of the famous waltz dynasty: Eduard Strauss: The Third Man of the Strauss Family (Hollitzer).

This Encounter was sponsored by the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature & Culture

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