Stand: December 11, 2024, 1:03 p.m
Von: Sandra Sedlmaier
PressSplit
The Pöckingen translator Stefanie Kremer received the Bavarian Art Prize in the literature category. In addition to the prize money, she is particularly pleased about the attention it brings to the work of translation.
Aschering – In order to translate a literary text from a foreign language into the native language, it is not enough to know the foreign language. It requires a feeling for language and nuances, and in the case of Stefanie Kremer’s most recent translation, a lot of tinkering was necessary. The 58-year-old from Ascheringen has now received the Bavarian Cultural Promotion Prize for the translation of Janice Hallett’s “The Twyford Code”. “The prize money of 7,000 euros is a great support because our fees are really not good,” she says in an interview with Starnberger Merkur. “But above all, I am pleased about the recognition of the translator’s work and his visibility.”
If you read the jury’s reasons, Stefanie Kremer has done much more than just translate a British crime novel into German. “In this extraordinary text there is multiple coding,” it says. “The original works with automatically transcribed audio files, which is associated with expected errors and requires plausible solutions in the German version.” In addition, acrostics are hidden in the text, secret messages formed from the first letters of the words. “This challenge demands top creative performance from the translator,” said the jury. “Behind the game, which seems so effortless in German, there is a lot of intellectual hard work behind it.”
-“When you read, you often have a happy feeling, and that comes from the language”
That’s not how Kremer would describe her work as a translator. But a feeling for language is very important, she says. “It’s important to convey the tone of the original. If a text is a bit bumpy, you should take that into account. It’s about conveying what the original represents.” At the same time, a translator also creates something of his own. “If you give a text to ten translators, you will get ten versions.” That is why it is all the more important to capture the text in its entirety. “You’re not just translating facts, but a certain feeling,” she says. What feeling? “When you read, you often have a happy feeling, and that comes from the language,” she is convinced. “That’s exactly the art: to capture this feeling when translating.”
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Stefanie Kremer already had the exhilarating feeling when reading that enthusiastic readers know well as a young person. That’s why she started studying German, Italian philology and French linguistics. “There were warning voices all around me,” she says, and so she finally decided on economics, a subject in which she also earned her doctorate. “I liked economics; it gave me a good understanding of the world.” But after working in a bank for a while, she realized that her path was different. After completing a postgraduate course in literary translation from English, she began working as a freelance translator.
Art funding award for Pöckinger is a “nice confirmation”
She has never regretted it, and now she also translates from French. They are mostly crime novels, “but I also write novels,” emphasizes the Ascheringer woman. Her dream would be to accompany a young British author in her development. She says she is much more fit when speaking French. “When I meet English people by chance and I tell them in my terrible oral English that I translate from their language,” she says and has to laugh. Reading, on the other hand, is never a problem, and she also reads a lot, in all three languages, to cultivate her language skills.
The award winner has lived in Aschering with her husband for almost 20 years. The price is a nice confirmation. “I knew that my publisher, Atrium Verlag, had nominated me. But when the letter came, it was a big surprise.” The evening in the Gärtnerplatztheater, where Minister of Culture Markus Blume presented the awards to her and the 16 other award winners, was extremely harmonious and enriching. “We were all happy for each other.”
