Karen Leeder

Karen Leeder is a leading English scholar of German culture. She studied German at Oxford University and the University of Hamburg. She taught at Emmanuel College, Cambridge for three years before taking up a post at New College, Oxford in 1993. Her interests include post-war German literature, the literature of the GDR, German poetry in translation, etc. She is an award-winning translator, and she has won prizes for her translations of Volker Braun, Evelyn Schlag and Ulrike Almut Sandig. She has published widely on German culture, including several volumes on Rilke and Brecht. With Christopher Young and Michael Eskin, she is commissioning editor for the de Gruyter series of Companions to Contemporary German Culture.

Books

• Editor, Rereading East Germany: The Literature and Film of the GDR (Cambridge: CUP, 2016)
• Editor, Figuring Lateness in Modern German Culture, special edition of New German Critique, 42.1, 125, (2015)
• Editor, with Michael Eskin and Christopher Young, Durs Grünbein: A Companion (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2013)
• Editor, with Laura Bradley, Brecht & the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity, Edinburgh German Yearbook, vol. 5 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2011)
• Editor, with Robert Vilain, Nach Duino: Studien zu Rainer Maria Rilkes späten Gedichten (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009)
• Editor, with Robert Vilain, The Cambridge Companion to Rilke (Cambridge: CUP, 2009)
• Editor, From Stasiland to Ostalgie. The GDR Twenty Years After, A special edition of Oxford German Studies, OGS, 38.3 (Oxford, 2009)
• Editor, Flaschenpost: German Poetry and the Long Twentieth Century, Special Edition of German Life and Letters (GLL, LX, No. 3, 2007)
• Editor, Schaltstelle: Neue deutsche Lyrik im Dialog, German Monitor 69 (Amsterdam, Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2007)
• Editor, with Erdmut Wizisla, O Chicago! O Widerspruch!: Ein Hundert Gedichte auf Brecht (Berlin: Transit, 2006)
• Editor, with Tom Kuhn, Empedocles’ Shoe: Essays on Brecht’s poetry (London: Methuen, 2002)
• With Tom Kuhn, The Young Brecht (London: Libris, 1992, paperback 1996)
• Breaking Boundaries: A New Generation of Poets in the GDR (OUP, 1996).

Translations

• Michael Krüger, Last Day of the Year: Selected Poems, trans. by Karen Leeder (New York: Sheep Meadow Press, October 2014)
• Volker Braun, Rubble Flora: Selected Poems, trans. by David Constantine and Karen Leeder (Calcutta, London, New York: Seagull Books September 2014). Commended for Popescu Poetry Translation Prize 2015.
• Wilhelm Schmid, High on Low: Harnessing the Power of Unhappiness, trans. by Karen Leeder (New York: Upper West Side Philosophers Press, 2014). Winner of Independent Publisher Book Award for Self Help (2015), Named Finalist for a Next Generation Indie Book Award for Self Help (2015); Gold Medal and Winner of Living Now Book Award (2015)
• Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Fatal Numbers: Why count on Chance?, trans. by Karen Leeder (New York: Upper West Side Philosophers Press, 2011). Shortlisted for National Book Critics Circle Award 2011.
• Evelyn Schlag, Selected Poems, ed. and trans. by Karen Leeder (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2004). Winner of Schlegel Tieck Prize for Translation 2005.
• Raoul Schrott, The Desert of Lop, trans. Karen Leeder (London: Macmillan Picador, 2004).
• Michael Krüger, Scenes from the Life of a Best-selling Author, trans. Karen Leeder (London: Harvill press, 2002; pbk. Vintage 2004).