Published: 08 December 2011

Ulrich Sonnenberg, born in Hannover in 1955, lives in Frankfurt am Main. He worked for some years in the German bookstore Tysk Bogimport in Copenhagen. In 1987 Ulrich Sonnenberg, together with Klaus Schöffling, founded the publishing house FVA-Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt GmbH; from 1993 until 2003 he was sales-manager in the publishing house Suhr­kamp/Insel.
Since 2004 Ulrich Sonnenberg has worked as editor and literary translator from Danish and Norwegian, among others he translated works by H. C. Andersen, Herman Bang, Hans Herbjørnsrud, Carsten Jensen, Morten Ramsland and Knud Romer.

Published: 30 October 2011

Kurt Tucholsky was born the son of a Jewish banker on 9 January, 1890, in Berlin. During his childhood, the family spent six memorable years (1893-99) in Stettin on the Baltic Sea coast, which Tucholsky regarded throughout his life as his “homeland”. After completing his schooling in Berlin, he studied law in Berlin and Geneva and was awarded a doctorate of jurisprudence in Jena in 1915. During World War I, Tucholsky spent most of his time behind the lines in Courland and Romania. He kept his distance from the German Revolution of 1918-19, although he did join the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which since 1917 had been more determined in its struggle for peace than the SPD. During the 1920s, Tucholsky, who had already begun writing newspaper articles as a high school student, became one of the most renowned and harshest critics of Prussian militarism and German post-war society and its elites. In innumerable satirical articles for the pacifist Weltbühne (many of which appeared under his famous pseudonyms Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger, Ignaz Wrobel and Kaspar Hauser), the Berliner Tageblatt and Vorwärts and in chansons written for cabaret, he expressed his support the Weimar Republic, democracy and human rights. He regarded the years from 1924 to 1928 as his happiest, when he was living in Paris with his wife Mary Gerold (although this second marriage also ended in divorce). His immigration to Sweden signalled his sense of resignation in the face of the political situation in Germany and his name was included in the first list of those deprived of their citizenship issued by the Nazi regime in August 1933. Tucholsky died in Gothenburg on 12 December, 1935, probably by suicide.

Published: 04 October 2011

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.