Published: 05 September 2011

Mathilde Mann was born on 24 February, 1859 in Rostock as Mathilde Charlotte Bertha Friederike Scheven.

Thanks to the fostering of her parents Mathilde alongside French, English and Italian as well mastered Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. At the age of 19 she married the businessman Friedrich Johann Bernhard Mann, who was the Royal Danish Consul at that time, a scion of the Mann dynasty from which also come Heinrich and Thomas Mann. In 1885, after the bankruptcy of the grain trade of the husband, the couple emigrated to Copenhagen. There, Mathilde started to offer her translation services.

In 1892 she separated from her husband and moved to Hamburg. With her translations, her special liking of complex texts and her feeling for languages she quickly became known and appreciated. She translated works of Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen, or even Johan Turi's "Book of Lappland" into German. After World War I Mathilde Mann started to work for a new to open Danish department of the University of Rostock, but unfortunately the necessary financial means for such a department were not approved. She, nevertheless, continued to work for the university. When she falls seriously ill, a number of eminent professors expressed assent to the request for an honorary doctorate. Thus, Mathilde Mann is the first woman at the University of Rostock who received the title Dr. Phil. h.c., although she never received an academic education. Mathilde Mann lived and worked in two homelands, Denmark and Germany – and, by that – proved to be truely European. She died in Rostock on February 14, 1925.

Published: 29 August 2011

Born in 1968 in Cologne.

Scandinavian, English and German studies in Cologne and Reykjavik.

Publishing editor for several years.

Translator of poems and prose by authors like Sjón, Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir, Kristín Steinsdóttir, Andri Snær Magnason and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir  from Icelandic into German.

Published: 06 April 2011

Born into a Huguenot family in Neuruppin, Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) grew up in Berlin and initially trained as an apothecary under his father. In 1849 he left the profession and became a full-time journalist and writer, working during the 1850s as a London-based correspondent. He wrote a number of books about Britain and, on returning to Germany, published works on Prussia's military campaigns and on Brandenburg. He also participated in the Franco-Prussian war and spent a short time in French captivity. From 1875 onwards he devoted himself largely to novel-writing.

Published: 01 March 2011

Simon Dach was born in 1605 in Memel in East Prussia, which is now the Lithuanian city of Klaipėda. His father worked as a court interpreter and, between 1619 and 1625, Dach attended schools in Königsberg, Wittenberg und Magdeburg. In 1626 he enrolled at the University of Königsberg and remained in the city until his death in 1659. In 1639, after working for six years as a secondary school teacher, he was appointed Professor of Poetry at the university.

Published: 20 February 2011

Renate Schmidgall, born in Heilbronn, is a German translator from Polish. She studied Germanic and Slavic Studies at Heidelberg University. From 1984 to 1990 she worked as a librarian, from 1990 to 1996 as a research assistant at the German Polish Institute in Darmstadt. Since then, she is a freelance translator for Polish literature. The best-known authors she has translated are: Stefan Chwin, Witold Gombrowicz, Paweł Huelle, Andrzej Stasiuk and Mirosław Nahacz.

Renate Schmidgall lives in Darmstadt. For her work she received the Jane Scatcherd price of the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation in 2001 and the European Translation Prize Offenburg in 2006. In 2009 she was awarded the Dedecius price jointly with Karl Ryszard Wojnakowski.

Published: 19 February 2011