Reviving the Forgotten: A Queer Classic in Translation

What does it mean to bring a forgotten queer classic back to life in a new language? This event centres on Lucy Jones’ English translation of SMALLTOWNNOVELLA by Ronald M. Schernikau, a cult debut novel that had to be reprinted within days of its German publication in 1980, yet has remained unknown to Anglophone readers for over four decades. The novella’s unflinching portrayal of coming out in a small West German town appeared at a time when queer literature was rarely visible and homosexuality remained heavily stigmatised on both sides of the German border.

Writing in The Brooklyn Rail, Chris Campanioni describes works like this as paradoxically appearing "before their time", and Schernikau's book is a powerful example of this. Now published in English by Ugly Duckling Presse in its Lost Literature series, SMALLTOWNNOVELLA finds a new moment and a new readership at a time when hard‑won gains in LGBTQ+ rights are being challenged, making this sharp, tender and politically charged text feel urgently relevant today.

Through readings from the source text and the translation, and a conversation about the book’s journey from 1980s West Germany to contemporary Anglophone audiences, the event will explore questions of queer literary history, translation and reception. How does translation reshape the afterlife of a “lost” text, and what does it mean to read Schernikau’s work now, in another language and a changed – yet disturbingly familiar – political landscape?

Lucy Jones is a British writer and literary translator who lives in Berlin. She has translated the work of Anke Stelling, Silke Scheuermann and Ronald M. Schernikau, among others, and was runner-up in the 2023 Schlegel-Tieck Prize for her translation of Die Geschwister (Siblings) by Brigitte Reimann. Her own short creative non-fiction has appeared in SAND, Pigeon Pages NYC, LitroMag and others.

Frank Wynne is an Irish literary translator, writer and editor. He has translated numerous French and Hispanic authors including Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Javier Cercas and Virginie Despentes. Over a career spanning more than 25 years, his work has twice earned him the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and also the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; he has been awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize three times and the Premio Valle Inclán twice. Most recently, his translation of The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild by Mathias Énard won the 2024 French-American Prize. He has edited two major anthologies, Found in Translation: 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Translated (2018) and QUEER: LGBT writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday (2021).