Shaun Whiteside (born 1959) is a Northern Irish translator of

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, Dutch, German, and Italian literature. He has translated many novels, including ''

Manituana ''Manituana'' is a novel by Wu Ming first published in Italian in 2007. Wu Ming is a collective of five authors founded in 2000. The members were formerly associated with the Luther Blissett Project and wrote the international best-selling novel ...

'' and ''Altai'' by Wu Ming, ''The Weekend'' by Bernhard Schlink, ''

Serotonin Serotonin () or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is a monoamine neurotransmitter. Its biological function is complex and multifaceted, modulating mood, cognition, reward, learning, memory, and numerous physiological processes such as vomiting and vas ...

'' by Michel Houellebecq, and ''Magdalene the Sinner'' by Lilian Faschinger, which won him the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation in 1997. Since May 2021, he has served as the president of the European Council of Literary Translators' Associations.

Life

Whiteside was born in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland in 1959. He graduated with a First in Modern Languages at King's College, Cambridge. After he finished his studies, he worked as a business journalist and television producer before translating full-time. As he said in a brief interview, "Did I always want to be a translator? I certainly wanted to do something that involved travel and languages, but even when my work in television took me to far-off places, I kept coming back to translation, first for fun, and eventually as a way of earning a living." Whiteside is the former Chair of the Translators Association of the Society of Authors. He currently lives in London with his wife and son, where he sits on the PEN Writers in Translation committee, the editorial board of New Books in German, and the Advisory Panel of the British Centre for Literary Translation, where he regularly teaches at the summer school. He has stated that he would like to "have a go at

Uwe Tellkamp Uwe Tellkamp (; born 28 October 1968 in Dresden, East Germany) is a German writer and physician. He practised medicine until 2004. Before the fall of communism, he was enlisted in the National People's Army as a tank commander and imprisoned whe ...

's ''Der Turm'' (''The Tower''), a massive great project but a worthwhile one."

Selection of translated titles

* '' The Wall'' by Marlen Haushofer, 1990 * ''Lenin's Brain'' by

Tilman Spengler Tilman Spengler (born 1947) is a German sinologist, writer, and journalist. The author of more than a dozen books, including ''Lenin's Brain'' (1993), he has received several literary prizes throughout his career, including: * 1999 Mainzer Stadts ...

, 1993 * '' The Birth of Tragedy'' by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1993 * ''Magdalene the Sinner'' by Lilian Faschinger, 1997, winner of the Schlegel-Tieck Prize * '' The Confusions of Young Törless'' by

Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (german: link=no, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most important ...

, 2001 * ''Let Me Go'' by

Helga Schneider Helga Schneider (born Steinberg, now in Poland 17 November 1937) is an Italian writer of German origin. She was the recipient of the Rapallo Carige Prize for ''II rogo di Berlino'' in 1996. The 2017 biopic ''Let me go'', directed by Scottish dire ...

, 2001 * ''Payback'' by Gert Ledig, 2002 * ''Auschwitz: A History'' by Sybille Steinbacher, 2004 * ''Mourning, Murder and Melancholia'' by Sigmund Freud, 2005 * ''The Bonfire of Berlin: A Lost Childhood in Wartime Germany'' by Helga Schneider, 2005 * ''

'' by Wu Ming, 2009 * ''Altai'' by Wu Ming, 2013 * ''Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich'' by

Walter Kempowski Walter Kempowski (; 29 April 1929 – 5 October 2007) was a German writer. Kempowski was known for his series of novels called ''German Chronicle'' ("Deutsche Chronik") and the monumental ''Echolot'' ("Sonar"), a collage of autobiographical repo ...

, 2015 * ''Melnitz'' by Charles Lewinsky, 2015 * ''The Giraffe's Neck'' by

Judith Schalansky Judith Schalansky (born 20 September 1980) is a German writer, book designer and publisher. Work Her book '' Atlas of Remote Islands'' won first prize in the Stiftung Buchkunst's The Most Beautiful German Books competition (German: Die schö ...

, 2015, commended for the Schlegel-Tieck Prize * ''Malacqua: Four Days of Rain in the City of Naples, Waiting for the Occurrence of an Extraordinary Event'' by

Nicola Pugliese Nicola Pugliese ( Milan, 8 August 1944 - Avella, 25 April 2012 ) was an Italian author and journalist. He published his debut novel, ''Malacqua,'' in 1977. Despite selling out in days, he requested not be reprinted and retired to a private life ...

, 2017 * ''To Die in Spring'' by Ralf Rothmann, 2017 * ''

'' by Michel Houellebecq, 2019 * ''Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy'' by Wolfram Eilenberger, 2020

External links

Article and review by Whiteside
for The Independent
Interview with Whiteside
by British Centre for Literary Translation (YouTube)
Description
of ''

Altai Altai or Altay may refer to: Places *Altai Mountains, in Central and East Asia, a region shared by China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia In China * Altay Prefecture (阿勒泰地区), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China * Altay City (阿� ...

'' at Verso Books
Description
of ''

'' at Verso Books
Description
of '' The Wall'' at Cleis Press

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whiteside, Shaun Irish translators Dutch–English translators French–English translators German–English translators Italian–English translators Translators of Sigmund Freud 1959 births Living people Literary translators 20th-century translators 21st-century translators Translators of Friedrich Nietzsche