Hi, I'm Brad.
Bradley Schmidt grew up in a Mennonite community in rural Kansas, completed a B.A. in German Studies at Bethel College (Kansas), studied German Literature and Theology in Marburg, Germany, and started a doctoral dissertation on Friedrich Schleiermacher in Halle an der Saale before completing a Masters in Translation Studies at Leipzig University. He lives and works in Leipzig as a translator and teaches writing and translation classes at Leipzig University. He was Co-Editor at No Man's Land (Associate Editor 2016-2019) and an Assistant Editor at Asymptote from 2014-2015.
Professional Organizations
- PEN America
- American Literary Translators Association (ALTA)
- Translators Association (TA / Society of Authors, UK)
- Verband deutschsprachiger Übersetzer literarischer und wissenschaftlicher Werk
- Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer (BDÜ)
- Duly appointed, commissioned and sworn at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden
- Member of the jury (fiction) for the Best Translated Book Award 2018 BTBA
Awards and Prizes
- Awarded a Guest Professorship from the German Translation Fund that was based at DLL - Leipzig University's creative writing BFA/MFA program - with a seminar on Identity, Writing and Poetry Translation
- Winner of Rhine Translation Prize for Spring Awakening by Isabelle Lehn 2023
- Lea Schneider's a hole in paper big enough was runner-up in the Columbia Journal Winter Translation Contest 2021
- Lea Schneider's Invasion in Reverse was an honorable mention for the 2019 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation
- Isabelle Lehn's "Spring Awakening" received a high commendation for the Stack Awards 2018: Best Original Fiction
- Bernhard Schlink's Woman on the Stairs nominated for the Helen & Kurt Wolff Prize 2018
- Anna Kim's Anatomy of a Night was a finalist for the 2013 Typographical Translation Award
- A special award from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture (BMUKK) for his translation of Anna Kim's Anatomy of a Night.
- Runner-up for the 2013 The Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation for his translation of Streumen by Ulrike Almut Sandig