Kurt Kelm
Kurt Kelm (born December 1, 1925 in Łódź , † December 16, 2009 in Oranienburg ) was a German translator . Kelm received numerous awards for his translations of Polish authors of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Life
Kelm, who was born in 1925 to German parents in Łódź, grew up bilingually. In 1944 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and in 1945 he was taken prisoner by the French . From 1945 he attended a grammar school for former Polish citizens in La Courtine , which had been established by the Polish government in exile . There he passed the Abitur in 1947. At the end of this year he moved to Naumburg (Saale) with his future wife Ludmilla, whom he had met during school .
After various temporary jobs, he started working as a freelance translator.
In 1954 Kelm visited Polish publishers during a two-month study visit. He then worked as a publishing editor for Volk und Welt , for the military publishing house and from 1972 again as a freelance translator. In the meantime he also worked as a teacher for a few years. From 1969 to 1972 he studied Polish studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin . In 1965, 1970, 1975, 1979 and 1987 he took part in translation congresses in Poland. From 1957 he was a member of the Writers' Association of the GDR and from 1979 of the Societas Jablonoviana .
Kelm, who had lived in Oranienburg and the surrounding area since 1949, died in 2009 of complications from Parkinson's disease.
Awards
- Translator award from the Polish authors' association ZAiKS 1970
- Medal of the Minister of Culture and Art of the People's Republic of Poland 1970
- Order of Merit of the People's Republic of Poland in Gold for translation work 1975
- Medal of Merit of the GDR for translation work 1980
- Medal of Honor of the Societas Jablonoviana 1981
- Translator Award from Volk und Welt Verlag 1985
Translations
Kurt Kelm has translated more than 60 books of various genres, including around 20 books for children and young people.
prose
- Jerzy Andrzejewski
- Bohdan Arct
- Adam Bahdaj
- Helena Bechlerowa
- Wacław Bieliński
- Kazimierz brandies
- Roman Bratny
- Alina Centkiewicz
- Czesław Centkiewicz
- Zofia Chądzyńska
- Bohdan Czeszko
- Stanisław Ryszard Dobrowolski
- Jerzy Edigey
- Małgorzata Fornalska (translated jointly with Ludmilla Kelm)
- Ryszard Frelek
- Stefan Grabiński
- Piotr Guzy
- Jozef Hen
- Leopold Infeld
- Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
- Elżbieta Jackiewiczowa
- Gustav Jarl
- Irena Jurgielewiczowa
- Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski
- Maciej Kuczyński
- Stanislaw Lem
- Jan Litan
- Tadeusz Łopalewski
- Janusz Meissner
- Zofia Nałkowska
- Edmund Niziurski
- Hanna Ożogowska
- Jan Parandowski
- Andrzej Piwowarczyk
- Jerzy Pomianowski
- Jerzy Putrament
- Michał Rusinek
- Maria Rutkiewicz
- Horacy Safrin
- Maciej Słomczyński ( pseudonym : Joe Alex)
- Halina Snopkiewicz
- Jerzy Stefan Stawiński
- Józef Stompor
- Julian Stryjkowski
- Jan Józef Szczepański
- Andrzej Wydrzyński
- Witold Zalewski
- Jerzy Zawieyski
- Stefan Żeromski
- Wanda Żółkiewska
- Wojciech Żukrowski
Pieces
Translations into anthologies
- Antoni Marianowicz; Ryszard Marek Groński (Ed.): Puzzle Games - Polish Aphorisms of the 20th Century . Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin 1973
- Jutta Janke; Hubert Schumann (Ed.): Neighbors. Texts from Poland . Volk und Welt Verlag, Berlin 1985. Translation of the texts by Jerzy Pachlowski , Ludwik Flaszen , Jan Józef Szczepański and Władysław Tatarkiewicz
- Gyula Kurucz (ed.): Blinding years for dogs . edition q, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-86124-174-9 . Translation of the novel Walks with a Dead Girl by Tadeusz Konwicki
Editions
- The Oder flows in the west. Modern prose about the Polish western territories . Selection and epilogue by Kurt Kelm. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1971
Web links
- Literature by and about Kurt Kelm in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinz Kneip; Hubert Orłowski (Hrsg.): The reception of Polish literature in the German-speaking area and that of German-speaking literature in Poland 1945–1985 . 2nd edition. Deutsches Polen-Institut Darmstadt 1989 (1988), p. 541 f.
- ↑ Polish Wikipedia article: pl: Odznaka honorowa Zasłużony dla Kultury Polskiej
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Kelm, Kurt |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German translator |
DATE OF BIRTH | December 1, 1925 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Łódź |
DATE OF DEATH | December 16, 2009 |
Place of death | Oranienburg |