Lannan Foundation

Zaia Alexander, Writer, Translator - Marfa, Spring 2008

Zaia Alexander is an author and literary translator living in Los Angeles and Berlin.  Her publications include Wende Kids: A New Generation of German Authors, “Primo Levi and Translation” in the Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi, “The Translator’s Diary” in Suitcase: A Journal for Transcultural Traffic, and “The Danube Exodus: the Rippling Currents of the River” (coauthored with Marsha Kinder) in Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (MIT).  Her most recent translations include the novel Snowed Under by Antje Rávic Strubel (Red Hen Press) and a selection of short stories which have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.  She holds a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literature from UCLA, and was formerly Director of Programs at the Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades.  In 2007, she served as Chair of the PEN Center Translation Jury.