Meyer-Clason, Curt (1910-2012)

Curt Meyer-Clason (1910–2012) was a German translator, editor, writer, and important cultural mediator, particularly for Latin American and Brazilian literature. Born in Ludwigsburg, he initially pursued a career in business, which took him to Bremen, France, Argentina, and finally Brazil. There, during a four-year internment as an “enemy alien” on Ilha Grande, he underwent a profound transformation and discovered his love of literature. After returning to Germany in 1955, he established himself in Munich as a freelance publisher and began translating numerous works from Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, and Italian in the 1960s. The authors he translated into German include such important names as Gabriel García Márquez, João Guimarães Rosa, Jorge Amado, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Augusto Roa Bastos, and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Meyer-Clason was director of the Goethe Institute in Lisbon from 1969 to 1976 and was regarded as a mediator between cultures who made an important contribution to international understanding with his open attitude and commitment to literature. His approach to translation was shaped by the conviction that “translating means living with someone else” – a deep immersion in the foreign culture and life of the authors.

Provenance: Donated in 2012.

Material:

34 boxes. Correspondence with publishers and authors. Newspaper clippings. Fragments of lectures, manuscripts, translations, radio and television contributions.

Languages

German, Spanish, Portuguese, English.

Keywords

Translations, novels, poems, publishers, authors, correspondence, literature, Latin America