Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, is the translator of Günter Grass’s From Germany to Germany, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

In January 1990, just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Günter Grass made two New Year’s resolutions: the first was to travel extensively in the newly united Germany and the second was to keep a diary, to record his impressions of a historic time. Grass takes part in public debates, writes for newspapers, makes speeches, and meets emerging politicians. He talks to German citizens on both sides, listening to their bewilderment and their hopes for the future. Ideas for stories take root—his novels The Call of the Toad and Too Far Afield.

From Germany to Germany is also a personal record. Grass reflects on his family, remembers his boyhood, and comments on the books he is reading, the drawings he is making, and the sumptuous meals he cooks for family and friends. The picture that emerges—not only of the two Germanys struggling for a single identity but of a changed world after the end of the Cold War—is engrossing, passionate and essential for anyone who wants to understand Europe’s new leading nation.

Jan. 25, 2013 by David Low

Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, will attend a translators working meeting with Günter Grass Feb. 10-14 in Lübeck, Germany. Grass, 85, is novelist, poet, playwright, artist and sculptor. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999.

Prof. Winston has translated several of Grass’s works, including his 1990 diary, From Germany to Germany, which was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in November 2012.

“It’s a pretty special thing when translators can sit down with the author for several days and hear from him directly what they should pay attention to, what was in his mind when he wrote certain passages, and what  historical, political, literary, or other background they may need in order to get the translation right,” Winston said.

Grass maintains an office in a historic building immediately adjacent to the GG Haus, a museum dedicated to literature and the visual arts, with a special emphasis on Grass’s work in both areas and on other artists with multiple talents.

Jan. 25, 2013 by Olivia Drake

Interested in becoming a GERMAN STUDIES major or minor?

Want to learn more about the GRST department and studying in Germany?

Come and join us at our  Open House on Wednesday, October 17 at 4:30p.m. in FIsk 404.

On October 14, actors from the Berliner Ensemble, the theater founded by Bertolt Brecht, will stage a second dramatic reading of Leo Lensing’s edition of Schnitzler’s Träume, co-edited with Peter Michael Braunwarth and published by Wallstein Verlag. The first performance was given on June 24 to a full house.

Since its publication in March, which was followed by a second printing in June, Träume has elicited an unexpectedly wide and positive response in the Austrian and German media. ORF TV (Austrian National Television) presented a feature on the book in the evening news on May 6; and Austrian Public Radio included a review a month earlier in “Ex libris,” a weekly program discussing new books. Deutschlandfunk, Deutschland Radio and Westdeutscher Rundfunk, three of Germany’s most prominent public radio stations, broadcast extensive reviews; Deutschlandfunk also named Träume  “Book of the Week” on May 15 (Schnitzler’s birthday). The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a full-page excerpt from the book in its Sunday edition in February and followed up with a very positive review and the designation as one of five “Books of the Week” on May 14. The reviewer for the prestigious Arts pages of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) called Träume “the most fascinating new book of the season,” and Die Welt (Berlin) published a two-page spread that combined a review with lengthy excerpts.  Austrian Public Radio included the book on its May “Bestenliste,” the ten best books of the month; and Southwest German Broadcasting (SWR) followed suit by naming it number 5 on its own list of the ten Best Books for July and August. Most recently, reviews appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the Times Literary Supplement.