Anna Weidenholzer’s first two novels have been enthusiastically received in Austria and Germany, her subtle and fragile tone being compared to the style of the young Peter Handke. Finde einem Schwan ein Boot (Find a Swan a Boat) is her third novel, hot off the press this August. Writer and translator Elisabeth Lauffer have been closely collaborating for some time, and will present and discuss an as-yet unpublished sample translation of the opening of the new novel.
Anna Weidenholzer was born in 1984 in Linz, Austria, and now lives in Vienna. She studied comparative literature in Vienna and Wroclaw, Poland, during which time she also worked as a reporter for a local newspaper. Her fiction has appeared widely in literary magazines and anthologies since 2009. Her 2012 novel, Der Winter tut den Fischen gut (Winter is Good for Fish), was nominated for the Leipzig Book Prize in 2013. Weshalb die Herren Seesterne tragen (Why the Men are Wearing Starfish), was longlisted for the German Book Prize. Her latest novel, Find a Swan a Boat, is released in August.
Elisabeth Lauffer is a German-English translator based in the USA. In 2014, she received the Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York, which marked the start of her work in literary translation. Her book publications include Michael Ohl’s The Art of Naming, Christian Welzbacher’s The Radical Fool of Capitalism, and Alexander Pschera’s Animal Internet. Her translation of The German House, by Annette Hess, appears this autumn. Shorter works of Anna Weidenholzer's have appeared in her translation on the Asymptote blog and No Man's Land.
Speakers: Anna Weidenholzer; Elisabeth Lauffer. Moderation: Andrea Capovilla (IMLR)
Event date: Tuesday, 22 October 2019