Mirjana Wittmann

Mirjana Wittmann was born in 1938 in Sarajevo and grew up in Belgrade. She studied languages in Heidelberg and worked in radio for 30 years, lastly as an editor in the Serbian Service of Deutsche Welle. Since 1997 she has worked as a freelance journalist, focussing on culture. Mirjana Wittmann has translated several works from German into Serbian: Heute Nacht ist viel passiert (Margaret Klare) [A Lot Happened Last Night], Das serbische Mädchen (Siegfried Lenz) (title of the English translation: The Serbian Girl), Medea. Stimmen (title of the English translation: Medea. Voices) (Christa Wolf) as well as a selection of poems by Hilde Domin. Together with her husband Klaus Wittmann she has published numerous translations into German, including works by Bora Ćosić, Borislav Pekić, David Albahari and Dubravka Ugrešić. In 2006, together with her husband and the author David Albahari, she received for Mutterland [Mother Country] (original title: Mamac) the Brücke Berlin Prize for the outstanding translation of a significant contemporary work from the literature of Central and Eastern Europe. In 2011 she was likewise, jointly with her husband, awarded the Paul Celan Prize of the German Literature Fund for all their translation work, especially for the translation of the novel Die Ohrfeige (original title: Pijavice) [A Slap in the Face] by David Albahari. She lives and works in Bonn. She lives and works in Bonn.