Klaus Laabs

Klaus Laabs (born January 21, 1953 in Berlin ) is a literary translator and editor. He primarily translates works by Hispanic American, French and Francophone authors from the Caribbean and Africa (including José Lezama Lima , Reinaldo Arenas , Alejandra Pizarnik , César Aira , Aimé Césaire , Daniel Maximin ) as well as plays by Catalan authors ( Sergi Belbel , Josep Maria Benet i Jornet ) , also poetry and prose from Portuguese, Russian, English and US-American (Arseni Tarkowski, Wole Soyinka ). His translation of the novel “Inferno. Oppiano Licario ”by José Lezama Lima was shortlisted for the Leipzig Book Prize in 2005 .

Politically, Laabs has made a name for himself as an activist in the GDR gay movement.

Life

The son of the educator and education politician Hans-Joachim Laabs joined the SED in 1971 before he graduated from high school . In 1972 he began studying diplomacy at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO). In 1975 he was dismissed from his studies because of “ideological deviations” and “unauthorized contact with the West” and then had to “prove himself in production” as a shift worker (insulator at VEB Kabelwerk Köpenick; three times activist for socialist work ).

In 1976 he began a three-year service with the NVA and then studied Romance studies / Latin American studies / literature at the Humboldt University in Berlin (graduated in 1984 with a degree in Romance studies). During this time his involvement in the GDR gay movement began. Above all, his attempt to discuss the gay issue in the university's SED organization, as well as his protest against the demolition of the listed gasometer in Prenzlauer Berg (submissions to the Supreme Court and the State Council of the GDR) led to his expulsion from the SED and thus at the end of his scientific career. In the subsequent niche existence as a freelance literary translator, he quickly gained recognition. Despite having a state license, he was banned from working as an interpreter in 1985. On January 15, 1989, he was taken into custody by the State Security after a protest at the Liebknecht Luxembourg State demonstration . In October 1989 he took part in the vigil in East Berlin's Gethsemane Church and called for the establishment of a pink-purple forum for gays and lesbians. On October 7, 1989, he was injured during the demonstration on Schönhauser Allee in East Berlin and had to be hospitalized for several weeks with a traumatic brain injury.

After revising his exclusion from the SED in November 1989, Laabs, together with Rainer Land , took part in the founding initiative for an “Independent Socialist Party” in January 1990, then became a member of the Alternative List (AL) and, after its merger with Bündnis 90 , the PDS .

When the GDR publishers were liquidated in 1990, Laabs lost his clients, he was unemployed for a long time, but was involved in building up the henschel SCHAUSPIEL theater publisher in Berlin, which he co-founded in January. He has been working as a freelance literary translator since 1994 and has been teaching at the Latin America Institute of the Free University of Berlin ever since. Laabs has been a member of the PEN Center Germany since 2017 .

Works (selection)

• Ed .: lesbians, gays, registry office. The gay marriage debate . Links-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-86153-020-1 .
• In their own right, masked . In: Wolfram Setz (ed.): Homosexuality in the GDR. Materials and opinions , library rosa Winkel, Volume 42, Männerschwarm Verlag Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-935596-42-1

literature

• Short biography for:  Laabs, Klaus . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Klaus Laabs in the catalog of the German National Library