Claudia Max studied literary translation at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, majoring in English and American studies. She has been a freelance literary translator since 2008 and has translated around 80 titles from English to date. In 2010, she was a fellow at the Berliner Übersetzerwerkstatt. Her work has been recognized multiple times with fellowships from the German Translators' Fund. The novel Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, which she translated, was nominated for the 2023 German Youth Literature Award.
she lives in berlin, but works everywhere, because what she loves most is traveling - in books and in the world. what excites her about translating is the change of worlds and genres, and she is especially happy about projects that advocate for an open society. she also loves stories about people who set out to reinvent themselves.
–– reading is where the wild things are.
jeanette winterson, why be happy when you could be normal
![Can a packed reading feel intimate? It can, the conversation between Olivia Laing and Charlie Porter @unionchapeluk on loneliness and the shame about it, about how the art and thinking of others can be a cure, how writing can be a frequence to reach out to others was a beautiful celebration of the 10th anniversary of ‘The Lonely City’. Olivia reading the final paragraphs of the book in this incredible venue was the perfect ending. We went out in the beautiful summer evening elated —‘When I came to New York I was in pieces, and though it sounds perverse, the way I recovered a sense of wholeness was not by meeting someone or by falling in love, but rather by handling the things that other people had made, slowly absorbing by way of this contact the fact that loneliness, longing, does not mean one has failed, but simply that one is alive.[…]I don’t believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it’s about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted.Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; it is a city. As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame, only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each another. We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell.What matters is kindness; what matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open, because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last.’ Copyright: Olivia Laing, The Lonely City’#olivialaing #charlieporter #thelonelycity #unionchapel #london](https://scontent-fra3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/727465400_18078018983652409_1648064458234153268_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=103&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0FST1VTRUxfSVRFTS5iZXN0X2ltYWdlX3VybGdlbi5DMyJ9&_nc_ohc=6m_pWM4J6xkQ7kNvwGye-tp&_nc_oc=Adr0UmYXYyPrPWtrMkJugcSnOj9qec9Bt45r6l1j7v8ZeGDvQuGBqiaOeeBggAz-Bw4XFYK91HV4SXUFX3P43aRj&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=HN-PN1avWEPsfy75In-IPA&_nc_tpa=Q5bMBQF5Yj3buvtjwHonuC-xRWFnY835IlwgYPDGS6iVVOdTojM8lW2HUvIw8aF310_eYPUk1GBQyB8M&oh=00_AQDGcaJRo5aeH0GUN5HzEaXY-UaO-Nyx3_gtecd3-CqDhA&oe=6A505AB1)
