# Susan Bernofsky

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{{Short description|American translator (born 1966)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Susan Bernofsky
| image            = Susan Bernofsky speaking at swissnex San Francisco on April 3, 2013.jpg
| caption          = Susan Bernofsky speaking at [swissnex San Francisco](/source/Swissnex) on April 3, 2013
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| birth_date       = July 20, 1966
| birth_place      = [Cleveland](/source/Cleveland)
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| alma_mater       = [Washington University](/source/Washington_University_in_St._Louis)<br>[Princeton University](/source/Princeton_University)
}}
'''Susan Bernofsky''' (born 1966) is an American translator of [German-language literature](/source/German-language_literature) and author.

== Life and work ==
Susan Bernofsky is best known for bringing the [Swiss](/source/Switzerland) writer [Robert Walser](/source/Robert_Walser) to the attention of the English-speaking world (in a "second wave" after the work of [Christopher Middleton](/source/Christopher_Middleton_(poet))),<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.bookforum.com/interviews/bookforum-talks-to-susan-bernofsky-8628 |title="Bookforum Talks to Susan Bernofsky" |access-date=2025-04-08 |archive-date=2024-12-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241205162900/https://www.bookforum.com/interviews/bookforum-talks-to-susan-bernofsky-8628 |url-status=live}}</ref> translating many of his books and writing his biography. She has also translated several books by [Jenny Erpenbeck](/source/Jenny_Erpenbeck) and [Yoko Tawada](/source/Yoko_Tawada). She holds an MFA in Fiction from [Washington University in St. Louis](/source/Washington_University_in_St._Louis) and a PhD in Comparative Literature from [Princeton University](/source/Princeton_University). Her prizes for translation include the 2006 [Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize](/source/Helen_and_Kurt_Wolff_Translator's_Prize), the 2012 [Calw Hermann Hesse Prize](/source/Calw_Hermann_Hesse_Prize), the 2015 [Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize](/source/Oxford-Weidenfeld_Translation_Prize), the 2015 [Independent Foreign Fiction Prize](/source/Independent_Foreign_Fiction_Prize), and the 2015 [Schlegel-Tieck Prize](/source/Schlegel-Tieck_Prize). She was also selected for a [Guggenheim Fellowship](/source/Guggenheim_Fellowship) in 2014.<ref>[http://www.ndbooks.com/author/susan-bernofsky/ Bio]</ref> In 2017, she won the [Warwick Prize for Women in Translation](/source/Warwick_Prize_for_Women_in_Translation) for her translation of ''Memoirs of a Polar Bear'' by Yoko Tawada. In 2018 she was awarded the [MLA](/source/Modern_Language_Association)'s Lois Roth Award for her translation of ''Go, Went, Gone'' by Jenny Erpenbeck.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mla.org/Resources/Career/MLA-Grants-and-Awards/Winners-of-MLA-Prizes/Biennial-Prize-and-Award-Winners/Lois-Roth-Award-for-a-Translation-of-a-Literary-Work-Winners|title=Lois Roth Award for a Translation of a Literary Work Winners|website=Modern Language Association|language=en|access-date=2018-12-30}}</ref> In 2024, Bernofsky was reported to be working on a translation of [Thomas Mann](/source/Thomas_Mann)'s ''[The Magic Mountain](/source/The_Magic_Mountain)''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/books/booksupdate/mrs-lowe-porter-jo-salas.html?searchResultPosition=2 |title="The Secret of Thomas Mann's Translator" |website=[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times) |date=30 January 2024 |access-date=2025-04-08 |archive-date=2024-12-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241204162041/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/books/booksupdate/mrs-lowe-porter-jo-salas.html?searchResultPosition=2 |url-status=live }}</ref>

She teaches at [Columbia University](/source/Columbia_University). In April 2024, she was one of 23 Jewish professors at Columbia (including six [Barnard College](/source/Barnard_College) professors) to sign an open letter to Columbia president [Minouche Shafik](/source/Minouche_Shafik), calling congressional investigations of antisemitism on university campuses "a new McCarthyism" intended "to rehearse and amplify decades-long bad-faith efforts to undermine universities as sites of learning, critical thinking, and knowledge production" and alleging a widespread effort to silence "Palestinian narratives and analyses on campus." The letter she signed declared that "today’s attacks on the university [because of alleged climate hostile to Jewish and Israeli students] are not truly about antisemitism."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQPSas3RycVCe_G6VS41nP9ekroGvyyzSHR4ey9qxDo6wwsQdvHLnh4RUWpNIHKgQ/pub|title=Letter from Jewish faculty on academic freedom, attacks on the University, and the weaponization of antisemitism|language=en|access-date=2024-04-12}}</ref> A shorter version of this letter was published in the [Columbia Daily Spectator](/source/Columbia_Daily_Spectator).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2024/04/10/jewish-faculty-reject-the-weaponization-of-antisemitism/|title=Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism|language=en|access-date=2024-08-24}}</ref>

In April 2024, she defended [student protesters at Columbia University](/source/Columbia_University_pro-Palestinian_campus_protests_and_occupations_during_the_Gaza_war) who were calling for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and for divestment from companies supplying it with military-related products.<ref name="g376">{{cite web | last1=Pietromarchi | first1=Virginia | last2=Adler | first2=Nils | last3=Najjar | first3=Farah | title=Israel's war on Gaza updates: Evidence of torture, executions in mass grave | website=Al Jazeera | date=2024-04-25 | url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/4/25/israels-war-on-gaza-live-calls-grow-for-gaza-mass-graves-investigation?update=2858976 | access-date=2025-06-02}}</ref>

==Books==
* ''Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser'' (Yale University Press, 2021)
** Finalist, [National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography](/source/National_Book_Critics_Circle_Award_for_Biography)
* ''[In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means](/source/In_Translation%3A_Translators_on_Their_Work_and_What_It_Means)'' (co-editor with [Esther Allen](/source/Esther_Allen), Columbia University Press, 2013)

==Translations==
===[Robert Walser](/source/Robert_Walser)===
* ''Looking at Pictures'' 
* ''[The Walk](/source/The_Walk_(novella))'' 
* ''Berlin Stories'' 
* ''[The Assistant](/source/The_Assistant_(Walser_novel))'' 
* ''Microscripts'' 
* ''[The Tanners](/source/The_Tanners_(novel))''  
* ''[The Robber](/source/The_Robber_(novel))'' 
* ''Masquerade and Other Stories''

===[Jenny Erpenbeck](/source/Jenny_Erpenbeck)===
* ''The Old Child and Other Stories'' 
* ''The Book of Words'' 
* ''Visitation''
* ''The End of Days'' 
* ''[Go, Went, Gone](/source/Go%2C_Went%2C_Gone)''

===[Yoko Tawada](/source/Yoko_Tawada)===
* ''Memoirs of a Polar Bear'' 
* ''The Naked Eye''
* ''Where Europe Begins''
*''Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel'', [New Directions Publishing](/source/New_Directions_Publishing), July 9, 2024, {{ISBN|9780811234870}}

===Selected others===
* ''[The Metamorphosis](/source/The_Metamorphosis)'' (W.W. Norton & Company, 2014) by [Franz Kafka](/source/Franz_Kafka)
* ''Perpetual Motion'' by [Paul Scheerbart](/source/Paul_Scheerbart)
* ''[The Magic Flute](/source/The_Magic_Flute)'' ([Mozart](/source/Mozart) opera libretto) by [Emanuel Schikaneder](/source/Emanuel_Schikaneder) commissioned by director [Isaac Mizrahi](/source/Isaac_Mizrahi) for the [Opera Theatre of St. Louis](/source/Opera_Theatre_of_St._Louis)<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBrM-7ATkRA Isaac Mizrahi in conversation with Susan Bernofsky] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161223113101/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBrM-7ATkRA |date=2016-12-23 }} and [Anne Bogart](/source/Anne_Bogart)</ref>
* ''[The Black Spider](/source/The_Black_Spider)'' (New York Review Books, 2013) by [Jeremias Gotthelf](/source/Jeremias_Gotthelf)
* ''False Friends'' by [Uljana Wolf](/source/Uljana_Wolf) 
* ''[Siddhartha](/source/Siddhartha_(novel))'' (Modern Library, 2006) by [Hermann Hesse](/source/Hermann_Hesse)
* ''Celan Studies'' by [Peter Szondi](/source/Peter_Szondi)
* ''The Trip to Bordeaux'' by Ludwig Harig
* ''Anecdotage: A Summation'' (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1996) by [Gregor von Rezzori](/source/Gregor_von_Rezzori)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://translationista.com/ Translationista (Susan Bernofsky blog)]
* [https://susanbernofsky.com/ Professional website]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernofsky, Susan}}
Category:1966 births
Category:Living people
Category:German–English translators
Category:American women non-fiction writers
Category:American literary translators
Category:21st-century American women writers
Category:20th-century American translators
Category:21st-century American translators
Category:21st-century American Jews
Category:Columbia University faculty
Category:Princeton University alumni
Category:Washington University in St. Louis alumni

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Susan Bernofsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Bernofsky) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Bernofsky?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.