Simon Werle

Simon Werle, born in 1957 in Saarland, is an author and translator. He studied Romance languages and literature and philosophy in Munich and Paris, and translated plays by Bernard-Marie Koltès, Jean Genet, Marguerite Duras and Samuel Beckett, as well as opera texts and tragedies, into German. For his translation work and adaptations of Racine’s tragedies, he received the Paul Celan Prize in 1988 and the Johann Heinrich Voß Prize in 1992. His novel “Schnee der Jahre” was awarded the City of Munich’s Tukan Prize in 2003. His translation of Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal” received the Eugen Helmlé Prize in 2017, and his new translations of Baudelaire’s poems and prose poems were honored with the Paul Scheerbart Prize in 2020.