In cooperation with the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium in Straelen, the Kunststiftung NRW - the Foundation for Art and Culture NRW - awards the most-highly endowed prize (€ 25 000) for literary translators in the German-language region every two years. The jury decided to award the "Übersetzerpreis der Kunststiftung NRW 2003" - the Translator Prize of the Foundation for Art and Culture NRW 2003 in equal parts to Bernhard Robben, living in Brunne, Brandenburg, and Christa Schuenke, Berlin.

Bernhard Robben received the prize for his translation of "Abbitte" by Ian McEwan (available from Diogenes Verlag, ISBN 3-257-06326-1, 534 pages, € 24.90), Christa Schuenke for her translation of "Pierre" by Herman Melville (available from Hanser Verlag, ISBN 3-446-17121-5, 740 pages, € 34.90). Both translators are being honoured for their comprehensive translation oeuvre.

Bernhard Robben successfully rendered the ambitious novel by contemporary English author Ian McEwan in an easy-to-read, in every respect adequate German publication.

The multilayered structure, the psychological and verbal associations of the original always remain recognisable.

Robben uses the entire breadth of German expression to easily recreate the original in fine nuances of language, making the translation a pleasurable read.

In the first modern translation of the novel "Pierre oder Die Doppeldeutigkeiten", Christa Schuenke provides German readers access to this idiosyncratic, ambiguous and contradictory, as well as controversial late work by the classic American author Herman Melville.

She successfully reproduces the extremely rhetorical as well as more lyrical passages of the original with its suggestive word creations, its bold unwieldy pictorial language and the often labyrinthine sentence structure without stylistically smoothing or toning it down and thus exactly replicates the work's character and effect.

With extremely subtle echoes of historical language patterns, she manages the extremely difficult balance between the language of the period the novel was written in and modern German.

The prize was awarded at the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium on 10 July 2003.

MEMBERS OF THE JURY

Irmela Brender, Joachim Meinert, Helga Pfetsch, Maja Pflug and Thomas Reschke

FURTHER INFORMATION

In cooperation with the EUK Straelen the