Fiction
Lit&Lunch: Translator Breon Mitchell on German Author Günter Grass
Nov 10, 2009|12:30pm
111 Minna Gallery, Minna Street, San Francisco, CA, United States111 Minna Gallery, Minna Street, San Francisco, CA, United States
111 Minna Gallery | 111 Minna Street | San Francisco, CA
This event has already taken place.
What’s it like to retranslate a classic work of literature, especially when you revere the original translation? Why even do a second translation of a classic work? These are questions lauded translator Breon Mitchell faced when he was asked to do the re-translation of Günter Grass’s Cold War classic The Tin Drum. He shares the secrets of how and why he did it, as well as the details of Grass’s unique week-long translators’ party in Danzig, where the book is primarily set.
Translator
Breon Mitchell
Breon Mitchell is a retired professor of Germanic studies and comparative literature at Indiana University. A past president of the American Literary Translators Association, he has translated works by Franz Kafka, Günter Grass, Martin Grzimek, and Sten Nadolny, among others.
Author
Günter Grass
Günter Grass was a German writer and artist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. An important figure in Germany’s postwar literature, he is best known for his 1959 novel The Tin Drum. Other notable works include The Flounder and the memoir Peeling the Onion.