Wolfgang Krege

From Tolkien Gateway
W. Krege.jpg
Wolfgang Krege
Biographical information
Born1 February 1939
Died13 April 2005
OccupationTranslator, author

Wolfgang Krege (1 February 193913 April 2005)[1] was a German author and translator. He translated several of Tolkien's works to German.

Wolfgang Krege grew up in Berlin, where he began his philosophy studies at the Free University of Berlin during the early 1960s. He worked as a lexicon editor, copywriter and reader. Since 1970 he worked as a translator for numerous publishing groups, too.[1]

The first of Tolkien’s books Krege translated, was The Silmarillion (Das Silmarillion 1978). His new translation of The Hobbit was published 1997 (Der Hobbit oder Hin und zurück). With his knowledge of J.R.R. Tolkien and his works, he wrote the encyclopaedia Handbuch der Weisen von Mittelerde in 1996 and an Elvish dictionary, called Elbisches Wörterbuch, in 2003.

Beside his translations of Tolkien’s works, he was the translator of books by authors like Anthony Burgess, E. Annie Proulx, Amélie Nothomb, Joseph Conrad, William Goldman and many others.[2]

In 2000 his most discussed translation was published, a new German rendering of The Lord of the Rings (Der Herr der Ringe), to replace Margaret Carroux’ earlier translation. Krege tried to render the original language styles into German equivalents and to make the translated text, in his view, more vivid and easier to understand for younger readers. This worked mostly, but major points of critism of his translation were that he used the different language styles in a too inconsistent way and that he chose the German of the early 1990s, including various slang words of this time.[3][4]

Wolfgang Krege was married to the German editor and translator Roswith Krege-Mayer.[1]

Bibliography[edit | edit source]

Translations[edit | edit source]

Original works[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kuppler, Lisa: Wolfgang Krege. 1.2.1939-13.4.2005. Ein Nachruf, in: Der Flammifer von Westernis No. 24 (1/2005).
  2. Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek (http://www.dnb.de/DE/Home/home_node.html).
  3. Dalli Dalli in Mittelerde, critical article about the new translation by Rüdiger Sturm, published 3 November, 2000.
  4. Nagel, Rainer: Verschiedene Interpretationen eines Textes als Grundlage von Übersetzungsstrategie. Die »alte« und die »neue« deutsche HdR-Übersetzung, in: Hither Shore 1 (2004), p. 85–117.

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