LITERARY PANEL | SUSAN BERNOFSKY IN CONVERSATION WITH SHARON DODUA OTOO
Are we nearly there yet? Creative Writing and the Pursuit of Social Change
Join us for a talk between Berlin-based British author Sharon Dodua Otoo, this year’s winner of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, and Columbia Professor Susan Bernofsky, one of the most renowned German-English translators of today, discussing the writer’s dual role as an artist and social commentator in these times of political upheaval in Europe and the United States.
Sharon Dodua Otoo’s books in English will be available for purchase and signing by the author.
The Bachmann Prize is presented for an unpublished text as part of an annual public and televised reading held in Klagenfurt, Ingeborg Bachmann’s (1926-1973) home town. bachmannpreis.orf.at
Sharon Dodua Otoo will be touring the US this fall. The evening at the ACFNY will be her only appearance in New York City.
More information regarding other appearances in the US:
1. Agnes Scott College
Reading & Discussion: Wednesday, November 9, 7 PM
Are we nearly there yet? Creative Writing and the Pursuit of Social Change
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2. University of Arizona
Reading & Discussion: Monday, November 14, 5 PM
Herr Gröttrup sits down
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3. Howard University
Reading & Discussion: Wednesday, November 16, 4 PM
Herr Gröttrup sits down
>>details
4. University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Reading & Discussion: Thursday, November 17, 4:30 PM
Herr Gröttrup sits down
>>details
5. Goethe Institut, Boston
Reading & Discussion (in German): Friday, November 18, 7 PM
Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin
>>details
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Dodua Otoo is this year’s winner of the Ingeborg-Bachman-Prize. Sharon received the award for her text Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin. Her first novella, the things i am thinking while smiling politely, was published in English in 2012 and appeared in German as die dinge, die ich denke, während ich höflich lächle in 2013 (both in edition assemblage). Synchronicity is her second novella. Sharon lives, laughs and works in Berlin.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Susan Bernofsky, one of the preeminent translators of German-language literature, directs the program Literary Translation at Columbia in the MFA Writing Progam at the Columbia University School of the Arts. She is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. Her lifelong fascination with German literature began when she first read the Grimms’ fairy tales in the original as a high school student. She takes a particular interest in the lines of influence linking eighteenth and nineteenth-century German thought to modern and contemporary literature and theater in the German-speaking world and beyond. Her writings on literature and culture are informed by her experience of living between two continents and cultures. She blogs about literary translation at www.translationista.net, and is currently at work on a biography of the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, whom she has been translating for over twenty-five years.
With the friendly support of the Library Hotel