"If I think about it, I have encountered questions of language and politics since the very beginning of my work as a translator—or to put it differently: It became apparent that issues of translation and politics always present in conjunction and interlaced with one another. That pure literary moment, it never really existed. From the very beginning, literary translation proved to be a discipline that, while requiring serene and patient dedication to the text, poses challenges on the page, and to the mind, that go beyond the literary realm."

» We realised that we would not be able to go it alone and that we needed a format that included staged readings, panels, a workshop, and an intense exchange between the French-language authors and their translators, directors, and actors in a German-language context. We needed a format that went beyond simply publishing a book, we needed the stage to overcome our Berührungsängste, our fear of touch. «

"There are many taboo zones. A translator who dares to go near them can expect trouble. When I translated Ilja Trojanow's The Collector of Worlds into Uzbek, descriptions of female nudity and allusions to physical intimacy were censored."

"For me, the first thing that comes to mind on the topic of Berührungsängste—fears of touch, of contact—is a somewhat outdated term: professional ethics. Contained within it are considerations of morality, of respect, and of critical restraint—not the worst companions for a life straddling borders between languages and literatures."

"[...] In that moment I realised what censorship actually is. It is a witch who silences poets and blinds them. I began considering whether my Iranian friend should be more careful in selecting his poems. Publishing them was risky."

It is not often that multiple translations of a book by a living author are published - Emmanuel Carrères L’Adversaire is one of them. Claudia Hamm's look at both German translations, Der Widersacher and Amok, shows the ways in which new translations make clear what voices speak in a text. In a complex (self-)observation, she describes what happens during and between reading and writing, that is to say, translating, and why a book calls out.

1984 – a classic that to date has mostly been discussed for its dystopian themes. But what the novel can tell us today and how it can stay alive in the form of new translations is just as much about stylistic choices. This is what Frank Heibert – in response to Josée Kamoun – contemplates in his essay.