Festival Neue Literatur 2015 Opening Reception

Festival Neue Literatur 2015 Opening Reception
February 19, 2015 - Austrian Cultural Forum
PUBLISHER ROBERT WEIL RECIPIENT OF THE 2015 FRIEDRICH ULFERS PRIZE
The prestigious annual prize honors individuals who have championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States.
The Friedrich Ulfers Prize, which was awarded for the first time in 2013, was presented to Robert Weil at the exclusive opening ceremony of New York City's Festival Neue Literatur 2015 on February 19, 2015.
Weil, who is Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director at Liveright, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, has edited many literary translations of German writers, including multiple volumes by Joseph Roth, as well as works by Heinrich Böll, Wolfgang Koeppen, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Werfel, Fred Wander, Franz Kafka, and Clemens J. Setz; non-fiction works by Rüdiger Safranski and Alice Miller, among others; poetry by Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Barbara Brecht-Schall, Brecht’s one surviving child; and fairytales from the Brothers Grimm, in several editions translated by the Harvard German scholar, Maria Tatar.
The Friedrich Ulfers Prize prize is awarded annually by Deutsches Haus at New York University (dhynyu.org) and endowed with a $5,000 grant by renowned scholar Professor Friedrich Ulfers. The prize honors a publisher, writer, critic, translator, or scholar who has championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States.
The prize will be awarded at a special ceremony that also marks the opening of the 2015 Festival Neue Literatur. Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, will give the laudatio in Mr. Weil’s honor. New York’s only annual German-language literary festival held in English will take place from February 19 to 22, 2015, at venues throughout New York City. This will be the sixth installment of Festival Neue Literatur (FNL), where New York City will once again play host to six authors from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.
“I, for one, a book editor with global passion, will always look for books, not which pander to fashions or future trends, but which attempt, in whatever way, to illuminate the past and invigorate the present,” Weil said at a 2009 talk in Munich at Ludwig Maximilian Universität that was sponsored by C. H. Beck.
Robert Weil, born in Manhattan, was raised by a German-born father and a German- born mother who grew up in Sweden. He graduated from Yale University in 1977 with a degree in History. Robert Weil lives in New York City and has lectured all over the United States as well as in Germany.
Weil has worked in publishing since 1978, and at W. W. Norton & Company, the oldest independent and employee-owned publishing company in the United States, since 1998. At Norton he served as an Executive Editor/V.P. until July of 2011, and since then has been the Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director of Liveright. Over the course of 36 years in mainstream American publishing, Weil has acquired and edited approximately 500 books in a wide variety of fields.
Friedrich Ulfers is an Associate Professor of German at New York University. He has also served as Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Science, the German Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of the NYU in Berlin summer program, and Director of Deutsches Haus at NYU. He is the recipient of NYU's Distinguished Teaching Medal and Great Teacher Award, and was twice awarded the College of Arts and Science's Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has taught not only in the German Department but also in NYU's interdisciplinary programs, offering courses that engage a range of interests, including literary theory, continental philosophy, and the relationships between science, literature, and philosophy.
Friedrich Ulfers is also affiliated with the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. He served there as a Professor of Philosophy, teaching an intensive Summer Seminar on Nietzsche and 20th/21st-century thought. From 2006 - 2009 he was Dean of the Media and Communications Division of the School, and in 2009 he was appointed Professor Emeritus. He is Senator of and serves as Secretary of the American Council for the School’s Media and Communications Division.
Festival Neue Literatur (FNL) was established as a collaborative project of New York’s leading German-language cultural institutions: the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Consulate General of Germany, the Consulate General of Switzerland, Deutsches Haus at Columbia University, Deutsches Haus at NYU, the German Book Office, Goethe-Institut New York, and Pro Helvetia.
Festival Neue Literatur 2015 is made possible through generous support from BMW of North America.
www.festivalneueliteratur.org
Video recorded and edited by Laia Cabrera & Co.
laiacabrera.com/company