Helga van Beuningen

Helga van Beuningen worked as a lecturer for Dutch at the University of Heidelberg from 1965 to 1984, after which she made translating her profession. It was some time before Helga van Beuningen turned her attention towards literature from the Netherlands and Flanders. At first Helga van Beuningen translated, also from english in collaboration with Barbara Heller, exhibition catalogues, a book on architecture, a travel guide, a guide for pregnant women, a book about plants, and so on. In 1986, her first translation of Dutch-language fiction appeared with Diogenes in Zurich: Unter Professoren by Willem Frederik Hermans.

Hermans' work passed through many hands in the German-speaking world. In the early 1960s, Johannes Piron had already tried to publish a translation of Hermans work on the German market. But his attempts were not successful. "It is said" (Eickmans, 2002) that Willem Frederik Hermans refused to grant permission because of the quality of the translation.

Ultimately, it was Jürgen Hillner who introduced Hermans to the German language area. His translation Die Tränen der Akazien from 1968 was not successful. It was not until 1982 that a translation of a work by Hermans was published again, this time a translation of Nooit meer slapen under the title Nie mehr schlafen by Rosemarie Still with Wunderlich. In the Netherlands Rosemarie Still was awarded the Nijhoff Prize for her translation, in Germany, however, the book was a "failure" (Eickmans, 2002).

Hermans' breakthrough only came about in 2001. Waltraud Hüsmert's translation of De donkere kamer van Damokles [The Dark Room of Damocles] by Kiepenheuer was a great success. For a while it seemed as though the translation of Hermans' oeuvre would begin. Hüsmert's retranslation of Nooit meer slapen appeared in 2002, in 2003 Au Pair and in 2005 Die Tränen der Akazien (also as retranslation by Waltraud Hüsmert). After that Hermans' work permanently moved to the publishing house Aufbau in Berlin, that had been marketing Hermans' work (under licence) as paperbacks since 2003. It was there that, on the occasion of the second participation of the Netherlands and Flanders as guests of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair (#Fairs), the revised translation by Helga van Beuningen and Barbara Heller of Onder professoren appeared in 2016. There have been no further developments since then.

The list of authors who's works have been translated by Helga van Beuningen is long. Like no other translator, Helga van Beuningen has put modern literature from the Netherlands and Flanders on the map in the German-speaking world. She only translated a few works by some authors, such as J. Bernlef, whose Zwischen Eisbergen was published in 1993 on the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair. In the context of this fair, Helga van Beuningen also published her translation of Stella Klein by Hermine de Graaf, Die Mühlen der Liebe by Renate Dorrestein, in collaboration with Gregor Laschen a collection of poems, and prose by Judith Herzberg. In 2006, Helga van Beuningen's translation of Specht en Zoon [Specht and Son] by Willem Jan Otten appeard, who's work had been introduced to the German-speaking public by the Austrian publisher Residenz in the 1990s. The book was very well received:

Yet Helga van Beuningen has not translated any futher work by Willem Jan Otten. Helga van Beuningen also set important accents with her translations of the works of Flemish author Louis Paul Boon (Abel Gholaerts (1990); Der Paradiesvogel (1993)). But these works too, did not get the attention they deserved

Jürgen Hillner had already presented the work of Louis Paul Boon in Germany (Eine Straße in Ter-Müren, 1970; Menuett, 1977) in the 1970s, but these translations did not lead to a breakthrough for Boon. At the end of the 1980s, Carel ter Haar also tried to market Boon's works, publishing Jan de Lichte und seine Bande (1987) and Boon's famous collection of stories Mein kleiner Krieg [My Little War] (1988) with Selinka in Ravensburg. Ultimately, Boon did not find a home base in the German language area. In 1993, Boon moved to the small publishing house Alano in Aachen with Helga van Beunigen's translation of Der Paradiesvogel. But this buisness relationship did non last either. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Boon reappeared at Luchterhand and later at Alexander in Berlin (that re-launched the translations of Menuett and Mein kleiner Krieg from the seventies and eighties).

Another author that was introduced to the German language area by Helga van Beuningen is Hans Maarten van den Brink. Van den Brink's first translated work, the "vibrant" (Hartung, 2000) novella Über das Wasser [Over the Water], was published by Hanser in 2000 and was very well received:

Helga van Beuningen has had great successes with her translations of the work of Cees Nooteboom. Her first translation of a work by Nooteboom, Ein Lied von Schein und Sein (1989), was published by Suhrkamp. This was followed by a new translation of Nooteboom's work by Helga van Beuningen at Suhrkamp almost every year. First the fascinating love story Mokusei! (1990) and not much later the very successful translation of Het volgende verhaal (Die folgende Geschichte, 1991) (Link naar pagina gesch??)). Van Beuningen is not the only translator of Cees Nooteboom's oeuvre in the German language area, but a large proportion of his publications in the German language area (ca. 40 titles) were translated by Helga van Beuningen.

Helga van Beuningen also played an important part in the translation of Margriet de Moor's work. Margriet de Moor made her German-language debut in 1993, the year of the first participation of Flanders and the Netherlands as guests of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, with Erst grau dann weiß dann blau [First Grey then White then Blue], a translation by Heike Baryga. The book published by Hanser was very successful (5 editions in 1 year) and still in 1993 it was also included among the titles of Bertelsmann and the Büchergilde Gutenberg. Despite the success of the translation of Erst grau dann weiß, dann blau, Helga van Beuningen's translation of Der Virtuose appeared with Hanser in 1994.

Helga van Beuningen can claim that two authors are her's: A. F. Th. van der Heijden and Marcel Möring.

The first translation of A. F. Th. van der Heyden (Ein Tag, ein Leben) was published by Suhrkamp in 1992. With the translation of van der Heijden's novels, Helga van Beuningen has definitively proven her skills as a translator:

 At the beginning of this century, a new title from Van der Heijden's "impressive" (Lüdke, 2003) oeuvre was published almost annually by Suhrkamp.

The second author Helga van Beuningen introduced to the German language area and has accompanied up to the present day is the Flemish author Marcel Möring. Möring's first work to be translated Das große Verlangen appeared with Suhrkamp in 1994 and was reprinted in 1998. In general, it was a success, but Möring's second translated work (In Babylon, 1998) was not published by Suhrkamp but by Luchterhand in Munich. This thick novel "epically broadly narrated, sad and hilarious at the same time" (Jedes Buch ein Durchbruch, 1998) got the attention it needed in Germany to be well received. In the first decades of this century new translations of Marcel Möring's work by Helga van Beuningen appeared with great regularity at Luchterhand: Modellfliegen [Model Flying] (2001), Mendel (2004), Der nächtige Ort [The Nightly Place] (2009), Eine Frau [A Woman] (2009), Im Wald [In the Forest] (2014).

Jan Brokken's first translation in the German language area appeared in 1998 (Die blinden Passagiere [The Stowaways]). The book was reprinted, but was received rather reservedly ("Less would have been more" (Zolnay, 1998); "nothing explicitly failed" (Karlhuber, 1999)). Maybe that's why it turned quiet in Germany for a while, in connection with Brokken. Mein kleiner Wahnsinn [My Small Insanity] was only published in 2007 and after that it again took a few years before the next book by Brokken appeared in German translation. It thus always takes some time, but Helga van Beuningen continues to promote Brokken's work in the German-speaking world.

In recent years Helga van Beuningen has clearly been looking for new authors. In 2006 her translation of May Rasker's Rekwisieten [Props] appears under the title In der Nähe des Meeres [Close by the Sea] with Luchterhand and two years later Wenn du eine Landschaft wärst [If you Were a Landscape] in which Maya Rasker, according to Der Standard, "conquers the mountain man” (Ruthner, 2008).

In 2017 Helga van Beuningen presented the "stirring debut" (Perlentaucher, 2017; Glasl, 2017) by the Flemish author Lize Spit: Und es schmilzt [And it is melting]. The novel caused a great deal of controversy. It was obvious for Spit's next novel to also be published by Fischer. In 2022 Ich bin nicht da [I'm not here] appeared, a story about a young woman who has to watch, more or less powerlessly, as her lover becomes the victim of a mental illness. The book was announced to be "more nerve-wracking, more emotional und more personal" (Ich bin nicht da) than Und es schmilz.

In 2016 Helga van Beuningen also presented the first translation of a work by Niña Weijers in the German language area: Die Konsequenzen [The Consequences]. Perhaps a little "too esoteric" says Annabelle Seubert in Die Tageszeitung (Perlentaucher2), but this has not prevented Suhrkamp from bringing out a second book by Wijers in 2021, namely the translation of Kamers antikamers under the title Ich. Sie. Die Frau [Me. Her. The Woman].

The most important discovery of Helga van Beuningen in the last decade has certainly been Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. (#Gender)

Rijneveld is considered to be one of the most important new talents in literature of the Dutch language area. Her debut novel De avond is ongemak was a huge success in the Dutch language area and has since been translated into more than 35 languages. In 2019, Helga van Beuningen's translation (Was man sät [What one Sows]) was published by Suhrkamp. Also in Germany, the book struck like a bombshell: