A Virtual Encounter between Andrea Grill and Tess Lewis

Wednesday 15 April 2020

Grill-Lewis Image 600 x 320 — Author Andrea Grill (© Andrea Grill) and Translator Tess Lewis (© Sarah Shatz)
With the scheduled Encounter between Andrea Grill and Tess Lewis postponed, in this virtual Encounter author and translator offer a glimpse into their creative process with an online conversation discussing their work. This digital exchange gives a fascinating insight into the working relationship between the two, as well as the practical and theoretical aspects of translation.

Andrea Grill’s most recent novel Cherubino, nominated for the 2019 German Book Prize, explores Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Nicholas Maw’s opera Sophie’s Choice. Extracts from both the German original and English translation are available to provide context to the discussion.

German Text - English Text

Andrea Grill is a writer, evolutionary biologist, and translator from Albanian, Italian and Dutch. She is an award-winning author of novels, essays and poems and was able to successfully combine artistic and scientific modes of investigation in her book Schmetterlinge. Ein Portrait. Her latest novels Das Paradies des Doktor Caspari and Cherubino were published in 2015 and 2019.

Tess Lewis is a widely acclaimed translator from German and French, including works by Austrian authors Peter Handke, Alois Hotschnig, Julya Rabinowich, and Doron Rabinovici. Her translation of Maja Haderlap’s Angel of Oblivion, was awarded the 2017 PEN Translation Prize.

The recording will be available on both the websites of the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Institute from 22 April 2020.

This Encounter is co-organised by the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature & Culture

More about the Encounters series