7 March 2016
At the opening ceremony for this year's Festival Neue Literatur held at the Goethe-Institut New York on February 25, German-to-English translator Burton Pike was awarded the 2016 Friedrich Ulfers Prize for his contributions to German literature. In his acceptance speech, below, Pike explains how he taps into the "rhythm" of each book he translates. This, he writes, is the key to making the voices of Goethe, Musil, Rilke and others "blossom" in English. - Hannah Johnson