Conference: Mediator and “Grenzgänger" (29th-30th November), Jerusalem, Israel

Self-translation will be a topic of two upcoming talks at the conference "Mediator and 'Grenzgänger'" organized by the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History, to be held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, on November 29-30, 2022. 
International Conference on Israeli Poet and Artist Manfred Winkler (1922-2014).

Tuesday, 29 November 2022: 11:00-12:30 Panel 1: Literary Creativity und Multilingualism

• Mikhal Ben-Chorin, Bar-Ilan University: Von Sprache zu Sprache: Winkler Translating Rübner Translating Himself
• Jan Kühne, Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Winkler’s Metamorphoses: Adaptations of Kafka in Self-Translation

For the complete program, please visit: www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-131444

Self-translation from indigenous languages

Last week I attended the first international conference on self-translation in Pescara, Italy. There I had the chance to meet Julio-César Santoyo, who has been researching on self-translation for many years. During our talk, he made me aware of self-translation from indigenous languages, an aspect of self-translation I had completely ignored till that day. He was so kind to give me a copy of a presentation he gave last year in Canada on this topic as a starting point for my own research. Back in Germany I now started researching. It is a really fascinating field.
Today I would like to present you a Mayan writer and self-translator: Humberto Ak'abal. He was born in 1953 in Momostenango, Guatemala. He writes his poetry in Quiché and translates it into Spanisch. His poems are published in bilingual editions. Some of his work has been translated from the Spanish version into English, German and other languages.

For further reading and listening:

• Presentation of the author by Mariolein Sabarte Belacortu
• Presentation of the author and the book "Drum Stone", a trilingual edition of selected poems. With the possibility to see inside the book.
• Podcast from a lecture with his english translators given at the Ullapool Book Festival 2010
• Erich Hakl on his German translation "Trommel aus Stein" (in German)
• Article in L'Express (15/10/2010): Humberto Ak'abal: hymnes, lamentos et tambours de pierre (in French)