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Contributor

Ross Benjamin

Contributor

Ross Benjamin

Ross Benjamin is a translator of German-language literature living in Nyack, New York. He received a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on the first English translation of Franz Kafka’s complete, unexpurgated Diaries, to be published by Liveright/Norton. His previous translations include Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew, Joseph Roth’s Job, and Clemens J. Setz’s Indigo. He was awarded a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Translation, the 2010 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his rendering of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov, and a commendation from the judges of the 2012 Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Thomas Pletzinger’s Funeral for a Dog. His literary criticism has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, Bookforum, The Nation, and other publications. He was a 2003-2004 Fulbright Scholar in Berlin and is a graduate of Vassar College.  

Photograph: Lauren Benjamin

Articles by Ross Benjamin

The Translator Relay: Ross Benjamin
By Ross Benjamin
Our “Translator Relay” series features a new interview each month. This month's translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth question. This month, Peter Constantine…
The World of Men and the World of Women
By Clemens Setz
What type did he prefer, Orlando Bloom or Benicio del Toro?
Translated from German by Ross Benjamin
Multilingual
From the Translator: Ross Benjamin on Translating Gunther Geltinger’s “Man Angel”
By Ross Benjamin
Translating an excerpt from Gunther Geltinger’s Mensch Engel for the June 2010 issue of Words Without Borders was a singular challenge. Geltinger stretches the limits of German syntax so as to capture…
from “Man Angel”
By Gunther Geltinger
Endless, the levee. Endless, the dead straight path.
Translated from German by Ross Benjamin
Eternal Youth
By Robert Menasse
My father was horrified when I told him that I was getting married and that the date and place were already set. He shook his head with his typical facial expression, a mixture of repugnance, incomprehension…
Translated from German by Ross Benjamin
Capoeira With Heckler & Koch
By Thomas Pletzinger
My bag in the back of the truck, the Antarctica bottles open, and we’re off. David at the wheel of the red pickup, Felix in an open shirt and panama hat, me with the twenty-four-hour flight in my…
Translated from German by Ross Benjamin