Seductions of Surveillance: The Writing of Wolfgang Hilbig
Goethe Insititut | 30 Irving Place | New York, NY
We’re celebrating Wolfgang Hilbig’s The Sleep of the Righteous again, this time in New York City!
“[Hilbig writes as] Edgar Allen Poe could have written if he had been born in Communist East Germany.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“Beautiful, dream-like stories of the pain and wonder of becoming oneself.” — Die Zeit
Join Hilbig translator Isabel Fargo Cole with New York-based writer and translator Joshua Cohen for a reading and conversation about the work and life of one of postwar Germany’s major literary figures. Raised in East Germany, Hilbig proved so troublesome to the authorities that in 1985 he was granted permission to emigrate to the West. The author of over 20 books, he received virtually all of Germany’s literary prizes, capped by the 2002 Georg Büchner Prize, Germany’s highest literary honor.
Isabel Fargo Cole is a U.S.-born, Berlin-based writer and translator. Her translations include five books of Wolfgang Hilbig’s, including Old Rendering Plant, for which she received the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize. She has also been the recipient of a prestigious PEN/Heim Translation Grant, and her novel Die grüne Grenze was a finalist for the 2018 Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse.
Joshua Cohen is the author of Book of Numbers (Random House, 2015). His novel Witz (Dalkey Archive Press, 2010) and short story collection Four New Messages (Graywolf Press, 2012) were named Best Book of 2010 and Book of the Year by The Village Voice and The New Yorker. Cohen’s nonfiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, London Review of Books, Bookforum, and The Forward. He is a critic for Harper’s Magazine. Cohen reads both German and Hebrew and has translated works in both languages into English. He lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Wolfgang Hilbig (1941–2007) was one of the major German writers to emerge in the postwar era. Though raised in East Germany, he proved so troublesome to the authorities that in 1985 he was granted permission to emigrate to the West. The author of more than twenty books, he received virtually all of Germany’s major literary prizes, capped by the 2002 Georg Büchner Prize, Germany’s highest literary honor.