Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation with the author Regina Dürig, currently
writer-in-residence at Deutsches Haus at NYU, and the writer and translator Tess Lewis. Their
conversation will focus on Regina Dürig’s creative practice; her wide-ranging writing (including
experimental prose, theater and radio plays, and children’s and YA books); and how her role as a
lecturer in creative writing influences her writing career and vice versa.
Regina Dürig (GER/SUI) is a writer, performer, and lecturer/mentor in creative writing, a. o. at
the Bern Academy of the Arts HKB. She writes experimental prose, theater and radio plays,
children's books, YA novels, and uncertain translations. Regina's work often revolves around
moments of silence and being silenced, as in her novel Federn lassen (2021, Literaturverlag
Droschl), and explores the notion of gentle encounters. Collaborations with other disciplines are
an important part of her artistic practice, notably the Stories & Sounds duo Butterland with
Christian Müller and the text-drawing-collective DUA with visual artist Patrizia Bach. Regina
has received numerous awards for her work, including the Peter Härtling Prize, the Wartholz
Literature Prize, and the Literature Prize of the Canton of Bern, her YA books were shortlisted
for the German and Swiss national literature award for young readers and included in the IBBY
Honour List. Her most recent publication is the children’s & recipe book Maila, Pia und die
Schokoladenzwillinge (2022, Verlag die Brotsuppe) and the play Körper am Ende der Welt
(2023, Theater Praesent Innsbruck). Regina has received her PhD from Plymouth University
(UK) with a fabulatory study of classical philologist Alice Kober’s archive. She lives in Biel.
Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German. Her translations include works by
Peter Handke, Walter Benjamin, Klaus Merz, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Christine Angot,
Pascal Bruckner, and Jean-Luc Benoziglio. She has been awarded grants from PEN USA, PEN
UK, and the NEA, a Max Geilinger Translation Grant for her translation of Philippe Jaccottet,
the ACFNY Translation Prize and the 2017 PEN Translation Prize for her translation of the
novel Angel of Oblivion by the Austrian writer Maja Haderlap, and a John Simon Guggenheim
Fellowship. She has served on the Board of the National Book Critics Circle and as Co-chair of
the PEN Translation Committee. She has been an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review since
2003. Her essays and reviews have appeared in a number of journals and newspapers including
Bookforum, Partisan Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Hudson Review, World
Literature Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Miami Herald and The American Scholar. Tess
Lewis was a 2021-22 Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Location & Time

6:00pm - 7:30pm on Monday, February 6, 2023
In-person at Deutsches Haus at NYU, 42 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003

Please register here.