Literary Translator of German, Brian Donarski

I am a freelance literary translator of German who translates narrative prose, dramas, literary criticism, and poetry. My primary interests are German and Scandinavian fiction, and my specialty is eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German literature.

Authors I have translated include Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Arno Holz, Gustav Kühne, and Emil Strauß. You can read my translation of Wolfgang Borchert’s short story “Nachts schlafen die Ratten doch” (1947) on this website as a sample of my work.

I hold a PhD in Modern German Literature from Indiana University (2024), where I have taught a wide variety of German language and culture courses. My dissertation, titled “Suicide and Crisis in German Narratives from the Eighteenth Century to the Twentieth, Alongside an English Translation of Emil Strauß’s Freund Hein. Eine Lebensgeschichte (1902)”, focuses on how German suicide and crisis narratives have changed over time. It concludes with the first known complete English translation of Emil Strauß’s groundbreaking Schülertragödie novel, which I have given the title of Our Friend Death. A Life Story.

I also work as a freelance copyeditor.

Some of my favorite authors include Hermann Hesse, Adalbert Stifter, Jens Bjørneboe, August Strindberg, and J.M.R. Lenz.