Karl Dedecius

Karl Dedecius (20 May 1921 in Łódź – 26 February 2016) was a Polish-born German translator of Polish and Russian literature.

Dedecius attended the Polish Stefan-Żeromski High School, where he received his high-school degree (Matura).

Dedecius remarked ... "Only when I had gotten myself set up in life and enjoyed some stability was I able to turn to literature in a long-term and systematic way, although my career, you could say, had nothing whatever to do with writing."

In the following years, he translated, so to speak in his free time, such well-known Polish writers as Zbigniew Herbert, Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Czesław Miłosz, Tadeusz Różewicz and Wisława Szymborska.

Since 2004, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, in cooperation with the German Poland institute, awards the Karl-Dedecius-Preis for translators, which is endowed with a prize of €10,000.