John E. Woods

John E. (Edwin) Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr. He has also retranslated all the major novels of Thomas Mann, a feat comparable, in simple page count, to a wholly new translation of Proust. Woods lives in Berlin.

Selected translations

Doris Dörrie

* "Love, Pain, and the Whole Damn Thing"
* "What Do You Want from Me?"

Thomas Mann

* "Joseph und seine Brüder": "Joseph and His Brothers"
* "Der Zauberberg": "Magic Mountain"
* "Doktor Faustus": "Doctor Faustus"
* "Buddenbrooks": "Buddenbrooks"

Libuše Moníková

* "Die Fassade": "The Façade

Christoph Ransmayr

*"Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis": "The terrors of ice and darkness"
*"Die letzte Welt": "The last world"
*"Morbus Kitahara": "The dog king"

Arno Schmidt

* "Nobodaddys Kinder": "Nobodaddy's Children"
* "Das steinerne Herz": "The Stony Heart"
* "Die Gelehrtenrepulik": "The Egghead Republic"
* "Kaff auch Mare Crisium": "Boondocks/Moondocks"
* "Zettel's Traum": "Bottom's Dream"
* "Die Schule der Atheisten": "School for Atheists"
* "Abend mit Goldrand": "Evening Edged in Gold" (winner of the American Book Award and the PEN Prize for translation in 1981)

Ingo Schulze

* "33 Augenblicke des Glücks": "33 Moments of Happiness"

Patrick Süskind

* "Perfume" (winner of the PEN Prize for translation in 1987)
* "The Pigeon"

Awards

On top of his awards for the translations of "Perfume" in 1987 and "Evening Edged in Gold" in 1981, John E. Woods was also awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for his translations of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" and Arno Schmidt's "Nobodaddy's Children" in 1996, as well as the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for the translation of Christoph Ransmayr's "The Last World" in 1991. He was awarded the Ungar German Translation Award in 1995, and most recently the prestigious Goethe-Medaille from the Goethe Institute in 2008.