German-language literature crosses the Atlantic with Peter Wortsman

Festival Neue Literatur devoted its 27 October programme to the relationship between German-language fiction and American readers. At the Goethe-Institut in New York, writer and translator Peter Wortsman received the Friedrich Ulfers Prize for his work bringing German authors and classics into English. Guests and Ghosts brought Michael Lentz, Tanja Paar and Laura Vogt together with Jonas Hassen Khemiri in a conversation curated by translator Alta Price. Founded in 2009, the festival places new writing from Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the United States in direct dialogue. The evening demonstrated that translation is not an invisible stage between books and readers, but an editorial practice able to create audiences, move ideas across borders and help build a genuinely international literary scene.