Mentors
Renowned mentors for literary translations were recruited for the academy. They not only played a decisive role in shaping the content, but also greatly enriched the technical discussions.
Bangla
© Partha Chattopadhyay
Parthapratim Chattopadhyay studied Zoology at the University of Calcutta. In 1990 he moved to Switzerland, obtained a diploma in computer applications and worked there as a teacher and software programmer for six years. After his return to India, he headed the Information & Library department at the Goethe-Institut in Dhaka and in Kolkata. He also headed the Seagull Arts & Media Resource Center in Kolkata.Partha Chattopadhyay translates literature and non-fiction texts from German into Bengali and from English into Bengali. He took part in several translation projects such as "Poets Translating Poets" (2014-16) and "Contemporary German Theatre in South-Asian languages" (2020-21) organised by Goethe-Institut India. As an interlinear translator, he has also worked with contemporary German and Bengali poets.
© Romit Roy
Romit Roy completed his german studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. After finishing his M.Phil. he joined the Department of English and Other Modern European Languages (DEOMEL) at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, where he has been teaching German since 1990. In 2014, Along with his colleagues he started the Centre for Modern European Languages, Literatures and Culture Studies (CMELLCS) and initiated undergraduate and postgraduate programs in French, German, Italian and Russian (B.A. Hons.). Apart from German literature, culture and language, Romit Roy’s research interests include the oeuvre of Theodor W. Adorno, especially his writings on music. The musical writings of Rabindranath Tagore, as well as his internationalism and pacifism that served as the philosophical foundation of the idea of Visva-Bharati are further areas of interest for him. He also writes and speaks about Indian classical music.
Hindi
© Anu Pande
Dr. Anu Pande completed her Ph.D. in German Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2017. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in literature, culture and civilization of German-speaking countries at the Department of Germanic Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, where she also supervises research scholars. Her research interests include cultural and literary animal studies, anthropocene literature, representations of disease and death in literature, discourses of violence, and autobiographical and auto-fictional writing. She has translated extensively from German to English and Hindi, including works by Zubin Mehta, Heinrich Böll, Walter Benjamin and Michael Rothberg.
© Priyada Padhye
Dr. Priyada Shridhar Padhye is Assistant Professor at the Centre of German Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi since 2015. Her areas of interest are translation and didactics, and in this connection she delivers lectures and conducts workshops on translation. In co-operation with Delhi University’s Department of German and Romance Languages she co-edited an anthology of Hindi translation of German contemporary short stories titled "Ikkisvi sadi ki German kahaniyan. Samay ki shaili ka ek safar", which was published in 2018. Her research project “Following the footprints of the Panchatantra” led to the publication of several articles, book contributions and conference papers. In some of her journal articles she discusses topics such as children's literature or the evaluation of translation assignments. Dr. Priyada Padhye has been a recipient of various fellowships.
© Vibhas Verma
Dr. Vibhas Chandra Verma is Associate Professor at the Department of Hindi, Deshbandhu College, University of Delhi. As an editor and author he has been associated with many prestigeous Hindi journals like Hans and Kathadesh. He has also published various articles, book reviews and translations in journals and magazines. Vibhas Verma has edited the books "Hans Ke Vimarsh" (two volumes) and "Rajendra Yadav: Interviews, Dialogues and Talks". As a Hindi language advisor with the Department of Germanic and Romance studies, University of Delhi, he has worked on several translation projects and conducted translation workshops.
Kannada
© M. P. Rajendra
Dr. M.P. Rajendra worked in the banking sector for more than thirty years, from 1969 until 2001. During his professional career as a banker he obtained the Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom (GDS) from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1973 as well as a Master's degree in German Studies from Karnatak University, Dharwad, in 1980. From 2001 till date, M.P. Rajendra has dedicated his work life to German language teaching, lately as a freelance teacher. He has been a part of various translation projects organised by the Goethe-Institut and works as a freelance interpretater.
Malayalam
© Mathew john Kokkat
Dr. Mathew John Kokkatt received his Ph.D. in 2003 from the University of Kerala with a comparative study of the Motif of Death in the novels of Heinrich Böll and Kovilan. Since 2009, he teaches at the Department of Germanic Studies, English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad. Together with Bernd Pflug he published an anthology of Malayalam stories and poems in German with the title "Welche Farbe hat die Liebe?" (DC Books, 2006). He co-edited a number of publications including "Six stories of Heinrich Böll in Five Indian Languages" (EFLU, 2018), the volume "Twentieth Century German Fiction: An Interdisciplinary Evaluation" (Bodhi Tree Books 2020) as well as the two volumes "Reflections on Ecotextuality from India. Greening Literature Anew" (Cambridge Scholars, 2023) and "Time and Temporality in the Asian and European Modernity" (DoBu Verlag, 2023, in print). Dr. Kokkatt has also authored the publication "The Selected Poems of Wilhelm Busch in Malayalam" (Bodhi Tree Books, 2020).
© Annakutty V. K.-Findeis
Annakutty V. K.-Findeis studied Philosophy, Political Science and English Literature at the Benaras Hindu University, where she subsequently completed her postgraduate studies with an M.A. in Philosophy (1970) and an M.A. in German Literature (1972). A research fellowship of the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research (1975-1979) led her to the Universities of Salzburg and Vienna. In 1979 she earned her PhD in German Literature at the University of Salzburg. Back in India, she became associate professor in German Literature and Head of the Department of German, Banaras Hindu University (1979-1988). From 1988-2003, she taught German at the University of Mumbai and was subsequently Head of the Department of Foreign Languages there. Her academic achievements are complemented with various research articles as well as numerous literary translations from Malayalam into German.
Marathi
© Goethe-Institut Korea/OZAK
Dr. Sunanda Mahajan completed her Master's degree in German Studies at the University of Pune (1980), followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching German and later M.Litt. from Central University of English and Foreign Languages in Hyderabad. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Mumbai for her thesis on comparative women’s literature. Dr. Mahajan taught German language and literature in Hyderabad and subsequently at the University of Pune, from where she retired as Professor of German and as the Head of the Department of Foreign Languages in 2019. During her long academic career she received numerous fellowships for research stints in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. From 2014 until 2018, she was invited as Guest Faculty to Göttingen University, Germany. The German language expert and translator is one of the founder members and editors of a Marathi translation quarterly titled "Kelyane Bhashantar" which publishes literary translated from different foreign languages into Marathi.
© Rajendra Dengle
Professor emeritus of German Studies, Dr. Rajendra Dengle has a long and illustrous career as a university lecturer, scholar, dean and literary expert. Dengle first studied philosophy and German at the University of Pune; in 1979, he received his MA in German literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, where he completed his doctorate in 1990. From 1979 to July 2021, he taught at the Centre of German Studies, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, JNU, with special focus on literary theory, history of German literature, modern German literature, and cultural studies. Doctoral and postgraduate scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) took him to the universities of Bielefeld, Bonn, Heidelberg, Bayreuth, Wuppertal, and Freiburg. He worked as secretary of the Goethe Society of India from 2004 to 2010 and was responsible for the publication of its yearbook. Dengle has translated numerous publications and literary texts from Marathi into German as well as from German into Marathi.
Sinhala
© Ashani Ranashinge
Ashani Shalika Ranasinghe completed her Bachelor of Arts studies at Kelaniya University, Colombo in 2000 with German, Japanese and Fine Arts as her main subjects. After graduation she started to work as a lecturer for German language at her Alma Mater, a career that she continues to pursue today. In 2005, she received her Masters of Arts in Linguistics from the same renowned university in Sri Lanka. Besides her teaching engagement Ashani Ranasinghe translates novels, short stories and children's stories, mainly from German but additionally also from English into Sinhalese. She has also authored five children’s stories in Sinhalese, English and German.
Tamil
© V. Ganeshan
Prof. Dr. V. Ganeshan studierte Hindi-Literatur, Geschichte und Politikwissenschaft an der Osmania University sowie Germanistik und Internationale Politik an der Universität München, wo er seinen Magister (1972) und seinen Doktortitel (1975) erlangte. Darüber hinaus verfügt er über das Sprachlehrerdiplom des Goethe-Instituts München. Während seiner 32-jährigen akademischen Laufbahn in Indien unterrichtete er deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Methoden des DaF-Unterrichts und bildete Lehrkräfte für Deutsch und Englisch aus. Von 1975 bis 2007 war er Professor für Deutsch am Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL) in Hyderabad und darüber hinaus auch mehrere Jahre lang Vizekanzler des Instituts. V. Ganeshan lebt in Atlanta, USA und blickt bereits auf eine lange Karriere als Gastdozent an mehreren Universitäten sowie als Dozent für Deutsch am Goethe-Zentrum in den USA zurück.
Urdu
© Salman Abbas
Since 2015 Syed Salman Abbas is Assistant Professor for German Language and Literature at the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of International Studies at Aligarh Muslim University. After graduating from the University of Lucknow with a Bachelor's degree in English, Economics and Anthropology, Salman Abbas pursued his studies of German Language and Literature at the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi, where he received his M.A. in 2010. In 2013, he graduated with a M.Phil. in German Literature from the Centre of German Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. While still studying, he taught as guest faculty at several foreign language departments. To this day his main areas of teaching and research comprise German as a foreign language, translation theories and practical approaches of literary translation, German literature, history and literary theory. His literary translations from German include works by authors such as Sybille Berg, Roland Schimmelpfennig and Elisabeth Langässer.
Workshop Leaders
© Tess Lewis
Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German into English. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Walter Benjamin, Lutz Seiler, Jonas Lüscher and Philippe Jaccottet. She is the recipient of the prestigeous awards like the 2017 PEN Translation Award (for her translation of Maja Haderlap’s novel "Angel of Oblivion") and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her essays and reviews have appeared in a number of publications including Granta, Bookforum, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She is an Advisory Editor for "The Hudson Review" and co-curator of the "Festival Neue Literatur", New York City’s annual festival of German language literature in English. In 2022, she was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.www.tesslewis.org
© Ulrike Draesner
Ulrike Draesner is a German poet and writer of long and short fiction. Her most recent publications are the poetry collection "hell & hörig" (2022) and the novel "Die Verwandelten" (2023). She has given lectures at various universities such as Oxford, Bamberg and Frankfurt. Since 2018 she holds a professorship for Creative Writing at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig (German Institute for Literature). For her poetry and prose she has received numerous literary awards, most recently the prize of LiteraTour Nord (2020), the GEDOK Literature Prize (2020), the German Prize for Nature Writing (2020) and the Grand Prize of the German Literature Fund (2021). She is a member of the Academy of Arts Berlin and of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Literature).www.draesner.de