Transfiction is a collective of experienced native speaker translators with offices in Berlin and Hamburg. We specialise in translating and editing literary fiction and non-fiction as well as marketing and communication texts for arts and business clients.
Lucy Jones translates literary fiction, art texts, plays and journalism from German. She studied German with W.E. Sebald at UEA and Linguistics at Surrey University. She has translated a wide range of writers including Ronald Schernikau, Silke Scheuermann and Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Brigitte Reimann and Theresia Enzensberger. Forthcoming is her translation of Anke Stelling’s “Schäfchen im Trockenen” for Scribe Books, Australia. She lives in Berlin where she founded the collective Transfiction GbR, and the Fiction Canteen reading series for LGBTQ* and PoC writers. She has published her own writing in SAND, Visual Verse, Pigeon Papers NYC and 3AM Magazine.
Jenny Piening translates a broad range of art, museum, theatre, travel, business and marketing texts, as well as an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction, from German. Her book translations include the business bestseller The Decision Book by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler (Profile Books), The Therapist’s Treasure Chest by Andrea and Filip Caby (Norton), and a series of sci-fi novels by Phillip P. Peterson. She has a background in journalism and editing.
Karen Witthuhn translates novels and theatre plays into German. She is a member of Drama Panorama, Forum für Übersetzung und Theater, and a board member of the International Theatre Institute Germany. She has worked as a theatre director, as well as dramaturg and production manager for international theatre festivals. She has translated a wide range of authors including Anita Nair, George Pelecanos, Percival Everett, Lisa Owens, Mark Peterson, M.J. Arlidge and Tania Chandler. Her translations (with colleague Sabine Längsfeld) of the bestselling crime writer Simon Beckett, regularly make it onto the bestseller lists of Die Zeit.
Photos by Anne Meurer.