Hartmut Fähndrich is a German scholar and translator, specialising in translation of Arabic literature into German.
Background
He was born in Tübingen and studied at the universities of Tübingen, Münster, and University of California, Los Los Angeles He obtained an Master of Arts in comparative literature and a Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic studies from University of California, Los Los Angeles In 1972, he moved to Switzerland where he has lived ever since.
Career
He has taught at the University of Berne and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. Fähndrich has translated more than 50 book-length works and numerous other shorter pieces. His first translated work was Wild Thorns (German title: Der Feigenkaktus) by Sahar Khalifeh in 1983.
Since then he has translated books by many of the most important Arabic writers, from Naguib Mahfouz to Alaa al-Aswany.
A partial list of these writers is provided below. The full list can be found here (Postdoctoral fellows).
Of the Saudi award, Fähndrich said that only a fraction of the prize money he was supposed to have shared with an Arab colleague has arrived so far (as of October 2012), Fähndrich said "I feel I"ve been cheated". Abdel Hakim Qasem
Abdelkader al-Janabi
Abdelrahman Munif
Alaa al-Aswany
Azmi Bishara
Edwar al-Kharrat
Emile Habiby
Emily Nasrallah
Gamal al-Ghitani
Ghassan Kanafani
Hamida Naana
Hanan al-Shaykh
Hassan Daoud
Hassan Nasr
Ibrahim al-Koni
Iman Humaydan-Yunus
Khaled Ziadeh
Latifa al-Zayyat
May Telmissany
Mohammad al-Bisatie
Muhammad al-Machsangi
Muhammad Mustagab
Naguib Mahfouz
Rashid al-Daif
Sahar Khalifeh
Salwa Bakr
Sinan Antoon
Sonallah Ibrahim
Yahya Taher Abdullah
Yusuf Idris
Zakaria Tamer.
Views
Quotations:
"I feel I"ve been cheated".
Membership
Fähndrich was also a member of the IPAF jury in 2008.