Hein, Manfred Peter
is a German speaking poet, translator and editor. Born in 1931 in Darkehmen, in the at that time German district of East Prussia, he grew up in the Baltic Sea town Labiau (today Polessk, Kaliningrad Oblast), which left its mark in his œuvre until today: “Summercloudlywhite dreamed world edge of childhood: Curonian Lagoon and Baltic Sea” (“Sommerwolkenweiß geträumte Weltkante der Kindheit: Kurisches Haff und Ostsee”, Fluchtfährte. Zürich 1999). This résumé in his autobiographic telling Fluchtfährte (1999, Escape Trail), shows that the Baltic Sea motive hasn’t left him until today, despite having lost his homeland to occupation by Soviet forces when Hein was a teenager. The sea appears in almost each of his poems, in one way or another: “[…] what I see / what I see in time / is different: // the beach grass / repeats the swell in the sand dune, / in the wind / the dune: only like that / they suit each other […]*” (“[…] was ich seh / was ich sehe auf Zeit / ist anders: // der Strandhafer / wiederholt die Dünung im Sand, / im Wind / die Düne: nur so / passen sie zusammen […]”. Schwarzort, Kurische Nehrung, 1967).
Manfred Peter Hein has not only been recognized with international prizes for his poetic work, but for his poem translations, too. He actually considers himself a transmitter of Finnish, Finland Swedish, Lapp, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian literatures - though the literatures boarding the Baltic Sea regions - especially in editing the literary magazine Trajekt (1981-1986) broadcasting poems oft these literatures via translations and academic explanations. The publication of different poetry anthologies (Moderne finnische Lyrik, 1962; Auf der Karte Europas ein Fleck, 1991) did not only establish Hein as an influential acclaimed Baltic Sea poet, but an acknowledged Baltic Sea translator, too. Since the beginning of the 1960s he has been living in Espoo, Finland. Since that time Hein published over a dozen volumes of poetry, he edited and published poem translations and wrote critics or rather academic interpretations about poetry, Finnish and German literature.
Literary prizes: 1975 Finnischer Staatspreis, 1984 Peter-Huchel-Preis, 1992 Förderpreis zum Horst-Bienek-Preis für Lyrik, 1999 Paul-Scheerbart-Preis, 2002 Nossack-Preis für Dichter und ihre Übersetzer, 2004 Literaturpreis Lettlands für das übersetzerische Lebenswerk, 2006 Rainer-Malkowski-Preis
Niedner, Felix
Felix Niedner was a German philologist and literary historian who was born on April 14, 1859 in Halle/Saale and died in Eberswalde in 1934. After completing his doctorate in 1882, he worked as a high school teacher in Berlin from 1883 to 1907 and was awarded the title of professor in 1902. He also worked regularly as a translator and wrote popular works in the field of Old Norse studies.
His major works are Das deutsche Turnier im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (1881), Zur Lieder-Edda (1896), Carl Michael Bellman, der schwedische Anakreon (1905) (which was followed by a brilliant translation of Bellman's Fredmans epistlar in 1909), Die Geschichte vom Skalden Egil (1911) and Islands Kultur zur Wikingerzeit (1913). Between 1911 and 1930 he edited the first 24 volumes of the famous collection Thule - Altnordische Dichtung und Prosa, published by Eugen Diederichs in Jena.
Trillmich, Werner
Werner Trillmich was a German historian who was born in Görlitz in 1914 and died in 1985. He achieved particular recognition for his new translation of Thietmar von Merseburg from Latin.
Trillmich studied in Leipzig, Freiburg and Breslau, where he wrote his doctoral thesis in 1938. After returning from internment as a prisoner of war, he first worked in Hamburg and, from 1952 onwards, as an editor for the "Westermann Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte".
In 1954 he began working as a university lecturer and in 1970 he was appointed Professor of History and Didactics at the Pedagogical University in Alfeld.
Sudermann, Hermann
Hermann Sudermann was born on 30 September 1857 on the Matzicken estate in the district of Heydekrug (today Šilutė, Lithuania), East Prussia’s northern-most district. His father was a brewer and worked hard all his life to feed his family. His children grew up in poverty. Although Hermann managed to complete his secondary schooling, he was ultimately forced to abandon his studies in Berlin. His initial attempts to establish himself as a writer brought little success but he was able to find work as a journalist and from 1881 to 1882 was co-editor of the Deutsches Reichsblatt. His breakthrough as a writer came in 1889 with the enormous success of his socially critical play Die Ehre (Honor). Over the following decades, Sudermann numbered among the Germany’s most often performed playwrights and was often a target of critics. He wrote a total of some 30 plays, including Sodoms Ende (1890), Heimat (1893) and Johannes (1898). His prose works, particularly the novels Frau Sorge (Dame Care, 1887) and Katzensteg (Cats’ Bridge, 1890) also found a large readership, enabling Sudermann to live as a freelance writer, marry and in 1902 to purchase the Blankensee estate near Berlin as well as a villa in Berlin’s exclusive Grunewald district. He played a prominent role in writers’ associations and, following the outbreak of war in 1914, he was one of the initiators and signatories of the Aufruf an die Kulturwelt (Appeal to the Cultural World / Fulda Manifesto).
Sudermann’s time came to an end with the decline of imperial Germany. In this respect, it is significant that his Litauische Geschichten (Lithuanian Stories) of 1917 marks a withdrawal from the present into a semi-mythic space of asynchronicity. His work attracted little interest in post-war society, although he achieved some success in 1922 with his notably autobiographical work Das Bilderbuch meiner Jugend (Picture Book of my Youth). He died in Berlin on 21 November 1928.
Lepner, Theodor
Volke, Lutz
Lutz Volke was born on 15 February, 1940 in Magdeburg and now lives in Berlin. He studied German and Nordic literature at the University of Greifswald and after completing his studies he worked as a literature editor with the radio broadcaster Berliner Rundfunk. In 1972 he joined the broadcaster Rundfunk der DDR, where he worked as a radio-play dramaturg. He subsequently completed his doctorate at the University of Rostock in 1983 and, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, he worked for Sender Freies Berlin (later: Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) from 1992 until 2005. He has contributed work to literary-history publications, newspapers, journals and radio and also worked as a reviewer and editor for belletristic publishers. Since 1976 he has also translated a number of Nordic-language works into German, work that won him the translation prize awarded by the Berlin publisher Volk & Welt. He is known particularly for his translations of Klaus Rifbjerg’s novels, stories, poetry and radio plays.
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