Albert Vigoleis Thelen (28 September 1903 in

Süchteln Süchteln is a borough (''Stadtbezirk'') of Viersen, a town which is the centre of the '' Kreis'' of Viersen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Süchteln was formerly an independent town; the Catholic parish church of St Clement is at its centre ...

Lower Rhine region The Lower Rhine region or Niederrhein is a region around the Lower Rhine section of the river Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany between approximately Oberhausen and Krefeld in the East and the Dutch border around Kleve in the West. As ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

- 9 April 1989 in

Dülken Dülken is a town located in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany. It has a population of about 20,000. It is a borough of the municipality of Viersen. It received its town charter in 1364 thus being the oldest part of the municipality of Vi ...

, Germany) was a German

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

(from Portuguese). Albert Vigoleis Thelen Tafel Palma

Life

Thelen was the son of booksellers Louis Thelen and Johanna Scheifes. After the primary school (1909–1913) he attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Schule (1913–1918). For more details on Thelen, his works, and secondary literature, as well as the recently published edition of Thelen's letters, se

Works

Thelen's main work, ''The Island of Second Sight'', which has been praised by many as one of the great achievements in German literature of the 20th century, appeared in 1953. It was soon translated into Spanish and French, later also into Dutch. Not until 2010 when it was published by Galileo Publishing in Cambridge, through the efforts of Isabelle Weiss, was it made available to English reader

The award winning translation by Donald O. White won the 2013

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been pr ...

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https://web.archive.org/web/20180320230719/http://www.overlookpress.com/island-of-second-sight.html]

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thelen, Albert Vigoleis 1903 births 1989 deaths Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German male writers