The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2022 - 28

ATA Honors and Awards
Philip Boehm
Ungar German
Translation Award
Philip Boehm
P
hilip Boehm was
awarded the 2021
Ungar German
Translation Award for
his translation of Arthur
Kostler's Darkness at Noon.
This is the third time Boehm
has received the award,
having won in 2013 for his
translation of Herta Müller's
2009 Nobel Prize-winning
novel, The Hunger Angel, and
in 2007 for his translation of
A Woman in Berlin, written by
an anonymous journalist.
Darkness at Noon is a
powerful and haunting
portrait of a Communist
revolutionary caught in the
vicious fray of the Moscow
show trials of the late 1930s.
Published in Great Britain
in 1940, it was praised by
George Orwell and went
on to be translated into
30 languages. And yet
28 The ATA Chronicle | January/February 2022
the novel's worldwide
reputation has, for over 70
years, been based on the
first English translation,
hastily completed alongside
the original, just before
the German occupation of
Paris in 1940, when both
Arthur Koestler and the
translator had to flee. The
original manuscript was
lost in the upheaval...until
it was recently rediscovered
in a Swiss archive. As it
turns out, this document,
equipped with Koestler's
corrections, departs in
several places from the first
English edition.
Arthur Koestler (19051983)
was a HungarianBritish
author and journalist
who immersed himself in
the major ideological and
social conflicts of his time.
In 1931 Koestler joined
the Communist Party of
Germany until, disillusioned
by Stalinism, he resigned in
1938. Over the course of his
life, Koestler espoused many
political causes. His novels,
reportage, autobiographical
works, and political and
cultural writings established
him as an important
commentator on the
dilemmas of the 20th century.
Philip Boehm is a
translator, playwright,
and theater director whose
career zigzags across
languages and borders,
artistic disciplines, and
cultural divides. He has
translated more than 30
novels and plays mostly
by German and Polish
writers, including Herta
Müller, Ingeborg Bachmann,
and Hanna Krall. He has
received numerous awards,
including fellowships from
the National Endowment for
the Arts and the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation. As a theater
director and playwright,
he has staged dozens of
professional productions at
theaters in the U.S., Poland,
and Slovakia. Boehm is also
the founding artistic director
of Upstream Theater in St.
Louis, a leading producer of
new international work.
Boehm is grateful to the
Ungar jurors, as well as to
the American Translators
Association for all they
do to advance the art and
practice of translation.
The Ungar German Translation Award may
be bestowed biennially in odd-numbered
years for a distinguished literary
translation from German into English that
has been published in the U.S.
www.atanet.org
http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2022

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