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Die Entstehung der Rubrik wurde durch eine Förderung des Hauptstadtkulturfonds ermöglicht. 

Claudia Sierich

Author

Translator

in Wien zum lateinamerikanischen Poesie-Festival 2010
© Dichter und Photograph Enrique Moya

Profile

Born: 7.3.1963
Birthplace: Caracas
Country of birth: Venezuela
Lives in: Berlin, Wilmersdorf


Source language: Spanish (native tongue) & German (mother tongue) & English (actively) & French & Italian (passively)
Target language: Spanish & German
Working language: Spanish so far

Vita

Nun suche man zur Sprache sich ein Land (You shall go find a country for your language)Reiner KunzeClaudia Sierich was born in Caracas in 1963, grew up in Venezuela and is living in Berlin since 2013. She has published three collections of Spanish poems already:  Imposible de lugar (2008), dicha la dádiva (2012), Sombra de Paraíso (2015). She received awards for her poetry and was featured in several anthologies in Caracas, Bogotá and Madrid. She founded the traficantesdepalabras festival in Caracas which stands for a radical exploration of translations. As a qualified conference interpreter and translator who got her degree in Munich, she translated many works (dramaturgy, essays, prose, poetry) which were published in her Spanish and German versions. Among other things, she collaborated with the Latin-American Poetry Festival alba.lateinamerika lesen (Vienna) for years. After graduating in Munich, she studied Latin-American Literature (Postgraduates-Program, Simón-Bolívar-University) and worked as a self-employed interpreter in the main fields of politics and culture in South and Middle America and the Caribbean. Nowadays, she continues her work in Berlin. For details go to www.claudiasierich.com.

6 Questions

What brought you to Berlin? Love? World politics? Or was it a coincidence?

Why don’t you chose for yourself: □ I tried to avoid the increasing political oppression and violence of my home country □ … and am now on a long journey. □ I wanted to replace one set of problems with another. Now I have two at least.


What do you love about Berlin?

□ bikes (still don’t have one) □ waters (I even swim when it’s cold) □ That it’s possible to smuggle words in the languages I know and the ones I don’t know □ The complex history of the city and its way of dealing with it


What do you miss in Berlin?

□ light | the climate is relentless □ time | the German time machinery is relentless □ heart & skin | see light and time


What is your favorite spot in Berlin?

The Rüdesheimer Platz no matter what season: It’s a place where a skyscape opens up above us without any effort, and we can find a place beneath, to drink wine, to read, to meet young and old.


Would you say you are a different person in Berlin? A different translator? And if yes, in what way?

If you look at it from the outside perspective, yes. Also from the inside perspective. In Berlin, as well as in Caracas or Barcelona I “am“ everything that I “am“, a hybrid


Which existing literary work do you wish you had written?

More than one. I wish I had written down or drawn thoughts, ideas, encounters (that are now strayed or lost) more often and more systematically, in a collection of notebooks of the same sort

Awards

2010  Honorary award of the communal literature prize von Caracas (rubric poetry) for Imposible de lugar
2007  First poetry prize for unpublished authors („Dichterpreis für unveröffentlichte Autoren“) by the Monte-Ávila-Editores press for the poem collection Imposible de lugar (Caracas)
1999  First prize (poetry) at the newly introduced Literature Competition by „Lugar Común“, Simón-Bolívar-University (Caracas)

Work

Publications in original language

Sombra de Paraíso

oscar todtmann Editores, Caracas, 2015 prose poem (Spanish), cover and details: www.claudiasierich.com

Imposible de lugar

Monte Ávila Editores Latinoamericana, Caracas, 2008 poetry (Spanish), cover and details: www.claudiasierich.com

dicha la dádiva

Editorial Equinoccio, Caracas, 2012 poetry (Spanish), cover and details: www.claudiasierich.com

Translated publications

Vírgenes Negras / (Schwarze Jungfrauen)

premiere in Sierich’s Spanish version in Caracas, 2007 theater play

Eine merkwürdige Topologie des Sinnes. In Sagen und Zeigen / (Una extraña topología del sentido)

Ch. Beck (Berlin)Ch. Beck (Berlin), 2004 essay, philosophy of language

Faustmond / (La luna de Fausto)

R S Schulz Verlag (Percha am Starnberger See), 1986 novel

Ballade / (Balada)

LAForum (Buenos Aires), 2006 poetry

Escrito con pluma de loro / (Mit einer Papageienfeder geschrieben)

Refolith (Caracas), 1994 poetry

Editorship

Bewohnter Garten. Ein deutscher Handelsreisender im Venezuela der 1950er

self publication, cover and details: www.claudiasierich.com, 2006 letter collection (bilingual—German & Spanish)