Your translators and interpreters
The writer Ursula Le Guin once said: “Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else.” Anyone who has ever translated a book can only agree. You need to be sensitive to content, style, and form; faced with, say, word play or an alliteration, you have to find equivalents or completely new solutions in the target language. The literary translator and scholar Alexandra Berlina translates both international classics and brand-new works by aspiring authors, be they short stories or essays, children’s books or plays, crime or sci-fi novels.
Alexandra loves translating literary texts – including those by self-publishers, especially if they feature humor or lots of in dialog. (Translating jokes and conversations is always fun!) She is particularly interested in translating poetry, whether into English or German. Send her your text, and you will quickly receive a price quote. Your request will of course be treated confidentially. If you’d prefer to find out more about Alexandra’s experience in translating literature and poetry first, read on for a CV in books.
Translating books is what Alexandra always wanted. At 14, she wrote in her diary: “I’m going to be a literary translator!” After many specialist texts, academic projects. and a PhD in translation studies, twenty years later, her dream finally came true: her first translations for a wide audience were published in 2019 – two children’s books by Neil Gaiman. One of them was a poetry translation, the other was shortlisted for the Nora Gal Prize for translations of short prose from English into Russian.
That was a start, but things got really exciting in 2020: Alexandra was chosen to translate Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita into German – a cult novel and a classic; fantasy, satire, and philosophical parable all in one. This was followed by reviews and recommendations, two more novels by Bulgakov and several translations from the English: humorous short stories by O. Henry and a novel full of wit and wordplay, Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman. If you speak German, here you can see what journalist Isabella Caldart has to say about the book and Alexandra’s translation – and read more about why and how Alexandra re-translates classics.
Since becoming a mother, Alexandra has been particularly interested in translating for children and YA – be it picture books, fairy tales or adventure stories for the little ones, or novels for teenagers and young adults. Translating non-fiction is a particularly fun challenge: the tone has to fit the audience, be neither too patronizing nor too difficult. She has always enjoyed reading coming-of-age stories, and what she likes to read, she also likes to translate. Diversity – neurodiversity, LGBTQ*, representation of people from different backgrounds – is a personal concern for her, and she can ensure that these topics are not lost in translation (which can happen if sensitivity is lacking, as she points out in an article on translating queerness published in Sexuality and Culture).
