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The Susan Sontag Prize for Translation
2008 Translation Prize Winners
Kristin Dickinson
Robin Ellis
Priscilla Layne
For their collaborative translation of
Koppstoff: Kanaka Sprak vom Rande der Gesellschaft by Feridun Zaimoglu
Kristin Dickinson
Kristin Dickinson is currently in her first year of the UC Berkeley Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature. She has studied in Germany and Turkey, and has taught English literature and creative writing as a Robert Bosch Fellow at the University of Potsdam. She holds a B.A. in English and German from the University of Rochester and an M.A. in English from New York University.
Robin Ellis
Robin Ellis was born in Berlin, grew up in San Jose, California, and received her B.A. in German Literature from Oberlin College in 2004. She then received a Fulbright Student Grant to research the works of German-Turkish women writers. Robin is currently a firstyear student in the UC Berkeley German Literature and Culture Ph.D. program.
Priscilla Layne
Priscilla Layne is currently in her third year of the Ph.D. program in German Literature and Culture at UC Berkeley, where she is researching issues of rebellion in German literature, music and film. After receiving her B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago in 2003, Priscilla served as a Fulbright Teaching Assistant in Berlin and she also interned as a translator for the Deutsche Welle in Bonn.
Koppstoff
Feridun Zaimoglu's Koppstoff: Kanaka Sprak vom Rande der Gesellschaft (1998) presents the fictionalized voices of 26 women of Turkish heritage living in Germany. “Koppstoff,” which when translated literally means “head material,” refers not only to the headscarf worn on the heads of many Muslim women, but also to what is going on in their heads – their thoughts, perspectives and inner lives. Zaimoglu resists any neat categorization of Muslim women by presenting a diverse range of voices: from cleaning women to professionals, from political activists to prostitutes. Koppstoff challenges readers to rethink conventions of religion, nationalism and femininity, and is globally significant for its contribution to debates on immigration, assimilation and discrimination–issues that resonate far beyond Germany’s borders.
Feridun Zaimoglu
Feridun Zaimoglu was born in Bolu, Turkey in 1964, and came to Germany with his family shortly thereafter. He grew up in Munich and Berlin, and studied art and medicine in Kiel, where he has lived since 1985. Zaimoglu has worked as a novelist, poet, screenwriter, playwright and journalist. His first novel, Kanak Sprak (1995), was a revealing portrayal of young men of Turkish decent living in Germany, and it introduced readers to a new and subversive language: German/Turkish slang. The book helped to inspire a wave of immigrant literature in Germany. Zaimoglu went on to found the transethnic activist network “Kanak Attak,” an organization committed to “eradicating racism from German society.”
His next novel, Abschaum (1997), was the basis of the film Kanak Attack, released in 2000. Zaimoglu has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Friedrich-Hebbel Prize (2002), the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize (2005) and the Art Prize of Schleswig-Holstein (2006). His essays have appeared in Die Zeit, Die Welt and Tagesspiegel, and his most recent novel, Liebesbrand, was published in February by Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
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