Speakers
Meet our guest speakers in person: experts of translation, publishers from German speaking countries and Asia Pacific as well as representaives of partner organisations.
Yvonne Martens
Yvonne Martens studied German Studies, specializing in children's and young adult literature, in Frankfurt am Main, and Romance Studies, specializing in French literature and language.
Lavinia Frey
Lavinia Frey is the director of the international literaturfestival berlin. She studied history, theatre studies, philosophy, and dance in Zurich, Bern, and London.
Janet DeNeefe
Melbourne-born Janet DeNeefe is the visionary Founder and Director of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival.
Simone Schröder
Simone Schröder is the director of the ilb’s evening programme.
Sanjoy K. Roy
Sanjoy K. Roy, an entrepreneur of the arts, is Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 30 festivals in 45 cities and 19 countries, including the world’s largest literary gathering — the Jaipur Literature Festival and international editions of JLF.
Abhijit Gupta
Abhijit Gupta is professor of English at Jadavpur University and director of Jadavpur University Press and the School of Cultural Texts and Records.
Tiya Hapitiawati
Tiya Hapitiawati is a literary translator from German language into Indonesian language.
Kristine Kress
Kristine Kress studied German studies, philosophy and Indonesian studies in Cologne. She lives as an editor, translator and coach in Berlin.
Isabel Fargo Cole
Isabel Fargo Cole grew up in New York City, received a BA from the University of Chicago in 1995, and has lived in Berlin ever since as a writer and translator
Andreas Förster
Translator of historical and political non-fiction, from French or English into German.
Thorsten Dönges
Thorsten Dönges, born in Gießen, studied Literature and History in Bamberg.
Zoë Beck
Zoë Beck writes, translates (fiction from English), and co-directs with Jan Karsten the publishing company CulturBooks.
Joanna Lee
Joanna Lee joined Atlantic Books as commissioning editor in 2022, where she has acquired titles including Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s Prix Goncourt-winning Watching Over Her
Jürgen Jakob Becker
Managing director of Deutscher Übersetzerfonds (DÜF) and deputy head of the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB)
Shelly Bryant
Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a poet, writer, and translator.
Diana Renker
Diana Renker grew up in Germany and moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1983. After obtaining her MA in art history, she initially worked in the contemporary arts
Philipp Diepmans
Philipp Diepmans grew up in Oberhausen and started learning languages at an early age.
Monika Li
Monika Li grew up bilingual – German and Hungarian – and studied German studies, philosophy and Chinese studies in Heidelberg.
Kevin Chen
Taiwanese author Kevin Chen started his career as a cinema and theater actor.
Darryl Sterk
Canadian translator Darryl Sterk is a late bloomer who only started doing literary translation in 2007, at first for The Taipei Chinese PEN.
Marcella Melien
Since 2019 Marcella Melien works at Litprom e.V. in the areas of events, press work and social media.
Jana Grohnert
Jana Grohnert is a PhD candidate in Literary Translation Studies at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a bilingual translator working from English, German and French into English and German.
Jérôme Bouchaud
Jérôme Bouchaud is an agent with the Astier-Pécher Literary Agency, based in Paris.
Anna Soler-Pont
Anna Soler-Pont founded Pontas Literary & Film Agency in 1992, a company dedicated to the international copyright management of writers around the world
Peter Klöss
Peter Klöss was born in 1962 and lives in Cologne (Germany). He has translated mainly novels and non-fiction from Italian and English for over 30 years.
Jamie Bulloch
Jamie Bulloch is the translator of more than fifty books from German, including works by Daniela Krien, Timur Vermes, Robert Menasse, Martin Suter, Arno Geiger, Romy Hausmann and Sebastian Fitzek.
Sarah Hemens
Sarah Hemens, Project Director, New Books in German, has developed and managed the New Books in German project for the last three and a half years.
Dr M. Kharis
Dr M. Kharis is a lecturer at Universitas Negeri Malang with a PhD in Language and Literature Education.
Carmen Grau
Carmen Grau is a freelance conference interpreter and a lecturer at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz/Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies, where she teaches simultaneous and consecutive interpreting from Italian into German.
Andrea Pasion-Flores
Andrea Pasion-Flores is the publisher at Milflores Publishing, Inc., a trade publisher based in Manila, in the Philippines.
Sulagna Mukhopadhyay
Sulagna Mukhopadhyay lives in Kolkata, India. As a student of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University she has always taken interest in translations.
Toni Pollard
Australian Toni Pollard had a 38-year career as a teacher of Indonesian language, both at high school and university level.
Taraka Leonardo Vipulaguna
Inspired by his mother’s bedtime story sessions Taraka Leonardo Vipulaguna has become an avid member of the club of all time fairy tale lovers.
Julia Rosche
Julia Rosche is a writer and editor at TraLaLit, a German magazine about literary translation.
Kanaya Sophia
Kanaya Sophia began sharing her reading experience on YouTube and Instagram in April 2017.
Dr Heike Patschke
Dr Heike Patschke is a literary translator and interpretor for Japanese.
Hannes Langendörfer
Hannes Langendörfer studied Scandinavian Studies and German Studies in Freiburg and Uppsala.
Claudia Kaiser
Claudia Kaiser was trained as bookseller, and has a MA degree in Chinese Studies. She lived in China for more than ten years, as editor for China Foreign Literature Publishing House,
Trasvin Jittidecharak
In 1991, Trasvin Jittidecharak founded Silkworm Books, a general independent publisher of English-language books.
Jayapriya Vasudevan
Jayapriya Vasudevan has more than twenty years experience of working in publishing, during which time she has worked in virtually every area of the business.
Ronny Agustinus
Ronny Agustinus is the founder and chief editor of Marjin Kiri publisher.
Judith Schalansky
Judith Schalansky, born in Greifswald in 1980, lives in Berlin as a writer, book designer and editor of ›Naturkunden‹. Her work, which has been translated into more than 25 languages, has received numerous awards.
Elisabeth Ruge
Elisabeth Ruge is an editor, publisher and literary agent. She studied English, American and Slavic studies in Frankfurt a.M., Moscow and the US.
Julian Müller
Julian Müller studied North-American-Studies, Musicology and Literary Translation in Berlin and Munich.
John H. McGlynn
John McGlynn is a co-founder of the Lontar Foundation, established in 1987 for the purpose of introducing Indonesia to the world
Nora Bierich
In August 2021 Nora became first chairperson of the Weltlesebühne e.V., a network of literary translators, and she belongs to the curatorial team of translationale berlin, a festival for literary translations that first took place in October 2021.
Dr. Florence Widmer
At Übersetzerhaus Looren she is primarily responsible for the areas of promoting young talents, grants and events, and she moderates discussions on literary translation.
Rosemarie Tietze
Rosemarie Tietze translates classic and contemporary Russian literature
Dr. Renate Birkenhauer
Since 2005 Vice-President of the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegiums in Straelen.
Rangsima Tunsakul
Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Library House Co., Ltd. and Managing Director Bangkok Book Festival
Christina M. Udiani
Currently she lives in Jakarta and works as senior editor at Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG), one of the publishers under the umbrella of Kompas Gramedia
Naveen Kishore
Theatre lighting designer, photographer, publisher Seagull Books.
Larissa Bender
Larissa Bender studied islamic studies, ethnology, history of arts and sociology in Cologne and Berlin and spent many years in Syria as part of her studies. She translates Arabic literature from Arabic into German and teaches Arabic. She also works as a journalist and edited 2 anthologies about politics and culture in Syria. Apart from that, she regularly moderates evens with authors, creates reader’s reports for Arabic literature and advises publishers and organisers of cultural events.
Nico Sandfuchs
Nico Sandfuchs has been working for the Goethe-Institut in various positions
Emeline Berton
After studying literature, Emeline Berton completed her master's degree
Pernille Starck
Pernille Starck studied archeology, history of art and book science