Roques, Cornelie von

Born in Berlin in 1942, Cornelie von Roques studied in Erlangen and France before graduating in interior design at the Werkkunstsschule Berlin (West) from 1962 to 1965, followed by studies in structural engineering architecture until 1967.

From 1970 to 2007 she worked as an interior designer for a furniture store in Hamburg, then as a freelancer and as an independent freelance interior designer.

Otto, Sven

Sven Otto was born in Meißen, Germany, in 1970 and lives in Vienna.
He graduated in Russian, Polish and translation studies and Library and information sciences, both at Humboldt University Berlin. Since 2001 he has been working as a journalist, translator and editor, since 2021 also as librarian at the Albertina art museum in Vienna. He is co-funder and co-owner of nov-ost.info, a news agency specialised in business news in Central and Eastern Europe.
During a three-years' stay in Ventspils (2005-2008) and later during residencies at the International Writers’ and Translators’ House, including the language programme for literary translators, he learnt Latvian.
His literary translations from Polish and Latvian (mainly fragments to present to publishers) include works from Wojciech Pestka, Māris Bērziņš, Alberts Bels, Lauris Gundars, Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš, Laima Kota, Zigmunds Skujiņš, Osvalds Zebris and Andris Kalnozols.

Rajer, Maria

Maria Rajer was born in 1987 in Ust-Kamenogorsk (Kazakhstan) and lives in Berlin. She studied Slavic and German at the St. Petersburg State University and the Humboldt University in Berlin.
Since 2013 she has been working as a freelance literary translator from Russian. Among the authors she has translated are Mascha Alechina, Dmitri Gluchowski, Wassili Grossman, Viktor Mazin, Pavel Pepperstein and Andrej Platonov.
Maria Rajer also translates regularly for the journalistic online platform dekoder.org.

Praetorius, Matthaeus

Matthaeus Praetorius Memelensis Borussus (Matthaeus Praetorius, c. 1635 - 1704) was born in Memel (now Klaipėda in Lithuania) into a family of pastors. He studied in Königsberg (1650, 1655-1657) and Rostock (1657-1660) and obtained a master's degree. Besides Latin, he studied German, Lithuanian and Polish. From about 1663 to 1684 he worked in the Lithuanian parish of Niebudschen (today Krasnogorsk). In 1684 he converted to Catholicism and became the historian of the King of the Republic of Two Nations, the Polish-Lithuanian dual state. From 1688 to 1704 he worked in Pomerellen as a Catholic clergyman. He died in Neustadt (also Weyersfrey, today Wejherowo in Poland).
Praetorius wrote five historical and theological books in Latin. He also wrote (from about 1670 to 1698) the 18-volume manuscript Deliciae Prussicae or Prussian Showcase, one of the most comprehensive works on the history of the ancient Prussians and the Principality of Prussia, one of the earliest descriptions of Baltic mythology and ethnography. He drew on ancient sources and medieval chronicles, as well as historical works and travelogues from the 16th and 17th centuries. In addition, there were works on church history and, in particular, treatises on the history of the ancient Prussians and information about the way of life, customs, beliefs and language of the Prussians that he collected himself. He also relied on the works of Simon Grunau, Johannes Bretke and Christoph Hartknoch.

Bernhardt, Horst

Horst Bernhardt was born in Bad Hersfeld in 1950 and studied Linguistics, Slavic languages, Finno-Ugristics and Islamic studies in Göttingen. After a period in Berlin, he lived since 1982 for many years in Kaustinen, Ostrobothnia, and taught German at the University in Vaasa. In Turku he worked for a translation agency before moving back to Berlin.
During the years 1982-86 Bernhardt was a collaborator of Trajekt. Beiträge zur finnischen, finnlandschwedischen, lappischen und estnischen Literatur, published both in Finland and West-Germany. He translated literary texts by Veijo Meri and Hannu Salama from Finnish, authors such as Tõnu Õnneplau and Viivi Luik from Estonian, and poetry from Latvian and, more recently, Yiddish. For his translation of Viivi Luik he received a state prize from the Estonian Literature Centre.

Binder, Hedwig M.

Hedwig M. Binder, born in Augsburg in 1956, studied Scandinavian studies, sociology and history in Göttingen and has lived and worked as a literary translator from Scandinavian languages in Bremerhaven since 1987.
She has translated works from Swedish by Kerstin Ekman, Richard Swartz, Maj Sjöwall/Per Wahlöö, Elisabeth Åsbrink, and others.