The career path of author and translator Thomas Pletzinger has taken him from Münster to Hamburg, New York, Leipzig, and Berlin, where he now runs the literary studio known as “adler & söhne literatur.” He is the recipient of numerous prizes, including a prestigious Uwe-Johnson-Förderpreis in 2009 and a 2010 Förderpreis für junge Künstler, awarded by the Federal State of North Rhein-Westphalia. The author currently holds a guest professorship at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. His novel Funeral for a Dog (Bestattung eines Hundes) was published in English translation in 2011 by W.W. Norton & Company.

Ross Benjamin was awarded the 2010 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his translation of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov (Verso Books). His other translations include works by Friedrich Hölderlin, Kevin Vennemann, Joseph Roth, and Thomas Pletzinger. He is currently at work on a novel about the Harlem Renaissance.