Claudia Ott: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia
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{{Draft article}}
{{Short description|German Arabist,scholar authorof Middle-Eastern languages, translator and musician, born 1968}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Claudia Ott
| birth_date = 1978
| occupation = [[Arabist]], author, translator and musician
| period = 2003 - present
| notable_works = German translation of [[One Thousand and One Nights]], 2004
| awards = [[Johann-Friedrich-von-Cotta-Literatur- und Übersetzerpreis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart|Johann-Friedrich-von-Cotta Award]]
| website = [https://www.tausendundeine-nacht.com/ Official website in German]
| birth_place = [[Tübingen]], West Germany
| alma_mater = University of Tübingen, Free University of Berlin (PhD)
| years_active = 2003 - present
}}
'''Claudia Ott''' (born [[1968]] in [[Tübingen]]) is a German scholar of [[ArabistMiddle East|Middle-Eastern]], authorlanguages, [[Translation|literary translator]] and musician. She is mainly known for her 2004 [[German translationlanguage|German]] translations based on the oldest existing [[Arabic]] manuscript of the [[One Thousand and One Nights|''One Thousand and One Nights'']] and similar medieval works of classical [[Arabic literature]]. In her public andas well as in recorded performances, Ott has presented this genre of [[Arabic epic literature]] asin the tradition of an [[Oral storytelling|oral storyteller]], accompanied by live [[Arabic music]].
== Life and career ==
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=== Musical career ===
In addition to her academic work, Ott has been a member of several international ensembles for Oriental music and has created her own programmes including [[Arabic music]] and Oriental literature. As a musician, translator and presenter, she has collaborated with the [[Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra]], the [[Göttingen International Handel Festival|Göttingen International Handel-Festival]] as well as with artists [[Mahmoud Darwish|Mahmud Darwish]], [[Mohamed Mounir]], Abdo Dagher and [[Gamal al-Ghitani|Gamal al-Ghitany]] among others. In 2001 and 2004, she presented musical programmes for literary readings by [[Nobel Prize]] winner [[Günter Grass]] on his visits to [[Yemen]]. Further, she is a certified musician for [[Church music in Germany|church music]] and has been directing the Saint Martin's choir in the village of [[Beedenbostel]].<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=apl. Prof. Dr. Claudia Ott |url=https://uni-goettingen.de/en/640458.html |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=Georg-August Universität Göttingen |language=de}}</ref>
=== Career as literary translator ===
[[File:Arabian_nights_manuscript.jpg|thumb|Oldest existing Arabic manuscript of ''[[One Thousand and One Nights|The Nights]]'', 14th century, from Syria]]
Since 1992, Ott has written as author and translator for various German broadcasting stations and newspapers. Starting in 2000, she began working as a [[Freelancer|freelance]] literary translator from Arabic into German. Based on the oldest existing [[Arabic]] manuscript of the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' in the critical edition by [[Muhsin Mahdi]], she published her German translation comprisedconsisting of 282 nightsstories on 700 pages in 2004.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2010-06-18 |title=Interview with Claudia Ott: A New Chapter in the History of Arab Literature {{!}} Qantara.de |url=https://qantara.de/en/article/interview-claudia-ott-new-chapter-history-arab-literature |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=qantara.de |language=en}}</ref>
Commenting on the historical literary character of ''The Nights'', Ott referred to their use in [[oral storytelling]] as a form of popular entertainment in traditional Oriental societies. The fictional style of the individual stories being quite different, every one of them required close scrutiny and translation into appropriate literary German style. Furter,Striving sheto remarkedstay onas close as possible to the characteroldest ofknown Shahrazad:<refArabic name=":1">{{Citetext webbefore any later European additions, the stories about [[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves|title=BridgingAli SpaceBaba]], [[Aladdin]] and Time[[Sinbad –the ASailor|Sindbad]] Conversationwere withnot Translatorincluded Claudiain Ott's |url=https://wwweditions.goethe.de/ins/iq/en/kult/kre/aco.html |access-date=2024-08-10As |website=@GI_weltweitmodern |language=en}}</ref>literary scholarship had shown, these stories had only been added to the French edition of ''The Tales'' by [[Antoine Galland]] in his own and many later versions.
Commenting on the character of [[Scheherazade|Shahrazad]], Ott said:<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Bridging Space and Time – A Conversation with Translator Claudia Ott |url=https://www.goethe.de/ins/iq/en/kult/kre/aco.html |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=@GI_weltweit |language=en}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=Shahrazad, the narrator of the overarching tale, is depicted as a woman who knows exactly what she is doing and who faces a life-threatening situation with shrewd intelligence and careful consideration. The real significance of the frame tale lay thus in her act of disrupting the spiral of violence, achieved not through conventional feminine traits like charm, attractiveness, and beauty, but rather through knowledge, education, and the power of literature.|author=Claudia Ott, Arabic scholar and translator}}
In 2012, Ott published the first ever translation of an even older manuscript, titled the ''[[One Hundred and One Nights (book)|One Hundred and One Nights]]''. She had discovered a manuscript of this work, dated from 1234 or 1235, in the temporary exhibition “Treasures of the [[Aga Khan Museum|Agha Khan Museum]]" in the [[Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin|Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin]]. This manuscript includes not more than 85 nights, with only two tales shared with the much later Galland manuscript of ''The Nights'', and was written during Muslim-rule in [[Middle Ages|medieval]] [[al-Andalus]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Elwakil |first=Mai |date=2013-02-28 |title='Arabian Nights' has a smaller sibling |url=https://egyptindependent.com/arabian-nights-has-smaller-sibling/ |access-date=2024-08-11 |website=Egypt Independent |language=en-US}}</ref>[[File:Scheherazade's_Tales_or_one_thousand_and_one_nights,_Mährchen_der_Shehesarade_oder_Tausend_und_Eins_Nacht,_by_Karl_Pfaff,_1838_CE,_with_six_copperplate_prints_by_Johann_Voltz,_Stuttgart.jpg|thumb|Scheherazade's Tales or One Thousand and One Nights, German translation by Karl Pfaff, 1838, with [[Copperplate etching|copperplate]] prints by Johann Voltz, Stuttgart]]Following several reprints after her first translation of ''The Nights'', Ott published more stories in separate volumes. The first of these were the tales of the nights 283 up to 542 that she had discovered and translated from a separate Arabic manuscript. This [[sequel]] is titled ''Tausendundeine Nacht. Das glückliche Ende''. (''1001 Nights. The Happy Ending'') and was published in 2016.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mangold |first=Ijoma |date=2010-06-10 |title=Immer neue Nächte |trans-title=More and more new Nights |url=https://www.zeit.de/2010/24/Handschrift-Tausendundeine-Nacht |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=Die Zeit |language=de-DE |issn=0044-2070}}</ref> In 2018, she published only the [[Frame story|narrative frame]] of ''The Nights'' as ''Tausendundeine Nacht. Der Anfang und das glückliche Ende.'' This volume contains the beginning of the cycle with the story of Shahrazad and King [[List of One Thousand and One Nights characters#Shahryar|Shahryar]], followed by the "happy ending" in a single volume. The 2022 volume ''Tausendundeine Nacht – Das Buch der Liebe (1001 Nights – The Book of Love)'' contains four long love stories about King Kamarassaman and other characters of ''The Nights''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bilbao |first=Valeria Bajaña |date=2022-07-10 |title=Orientalistin über arabische Literatur: "Mehr als nur Liebesgeschichten" |url=https://taz.de/Orientalistin-ueber-arabische-Literatur/!5862729/ |access-date=2024-08-15 |work=Die Tageszeitung: taz |language=de |issn=0931-9085}}</ref>
''Tausendundeine Nacht. Das glückliche Ende.''
The title of Ott's 2008 [[anthology]] of Oriental love poems ''Gold auf Lapislazuli'' (''Gold on [[Lapis lazuli|Lapiz Lazuli]])'' goes back to a poem from al-Andalus about the "twinkling of stars in a dark blue sky." This collection of 100 translated poems from seven different oriental languages presents works written in different historical periods and features the most important themes of this sub-genre.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-04-30 |title=Interview with Claudia Ott: "Love is the Language of the Orient" {{!}} Qantara.de |url=https://qantara.de/en/article/interview-claudia-ott-love-language-orient |access-date=2024-08-12 |website=qantara.de |language=en}}</ref>
In her public readings, Ott is usually accompanied by an Arabic musical group and reads the stories aloud, both in German and Arabic. By this, she presents her stories in the traditional way of Oriental storytelling.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schlicht |first=Anke |date=2022-07-11 |title=Buchpremiere im Schlosstheater mit deutschlandweiter Strahlkraft {{!}} CELLEHEUTE.DE {{!}} Kultur |url=https://www.celleheute.de/post/buchpremiere-im-schlosstheater-mit-deutschlandweiter-strahlkraft |access-date=2024-08-15 |website=CELLEHEUTE.DE |language=de}}</ref> In printed editions, her translations have been illustrated with [[Arabic calligraphy]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Autor Claudia Ott |url=https://www.chbeck.de/autor/?authorid=12969 |access-date=2024-08-15 |website=www.chbeck.de |language=de}}</ref>
In 2012, Ott published the first ever translation of an even older manuscript, called the ''[[One Hundred and One Nights (book)|One Hundred and One Nights]]''. She had discovered a manuscript of this work, dated from 1234 or 1235, in the temporary exhibition “Treasures of the [[Aga Khan Museum|Agha Khan Museum]]" in the [[Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin|Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin]]. This collection includes not more than the first 85 nights, with only two tales shared with the much later Gallard manuscript of ''The Nights'', and was written during Muslim-rule in [[Middle Ages|medieval]] [[al-Andalus]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Elwakil |first=Mai |date=2013-02-28 |title='Arabian Nights' has a smaller sibling |url=https://egyptindependent.com/arabian-nights-has-smaller-sibling/ |access-date=2024-08-11 |website=Egypt Independent |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Reception ==
Based on her translations of the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' and other works of medieval Arabic literature, Ott has been called one of the "foremost translators from Arabic to German" and is considered an important mediator of Arabic culture in German-speaking countries.<ref name=":1" />
Reviews of herthe translation of ''The Nights'' have been very positive, welcomingnoting thetheir contemporary language and appropriate style of theliterary textstyle. Compared to the earlier German translationtranslations, for example by Arabist [[Enno Littmann]], who first published his version in the 1920s, reviewers notedwelcomed Ott's choice to render erotic scenes in contemporary language rather than omitting such scenes on grounds of morality, as some earlier European and Arabic versions had done.<ref>{{Cite Oneweb |last=Grees |first=Samir |date=2010-05-14 |title="The Arabian Nights": Obscene Pornography or a Great Work of Culture? |url=https://qantara.de/en/article/arabian-nights-obscene-pornography-or-great-work-culture |access-date=2024-08-15 |website=qantara.de |language=en}}</ref>
A review in the online magazine [[Qantara.de|Qantara]] called Ott's style "freed from the imposed [[patina]] of the European fairytale idiom" and also remarked her translations of the original poems set between the tales.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ammann |first=Ludwig |date=2006-12-29 |title=1001 Nights: The Healing Power of Storytelling {{!}} Qantara.de |url=https://qantara.de/en/article/1001-nights-healing-power-storytelling |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=qantara.de |language=en}}</ref> These poems had been omitted in earlier German versions, whileand Ott included them, using various [[Metre (poetry)|poetic metres]] reflecting the original [[Arabic poetry|Arabic verses]]. A review of ''The Nights'' in the German weekly [[Der Spiegel]] compared her work to the [[Conservation and restoration of cultural property|restoration]] of a historichistorical work, as she had removed the "layers" of earlier translations placed over the "magnificent painting and exposed the good, old original."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wiedemann |first=Erich |date=2004-09-28 |title=Arabische Welt: Ali Baba und der faule Zauber |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/a-320339.html |access-date=2024-08-12 |work=Der Spiegel |language=de |issn=2195-1349}}</ref>
Following the first edition in 2004, Ott's ''Tausendundeine Nacht'' has been reprinted in hardcover several times, with additional paperback editions, audio books and online versions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=DNB, Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek - Claudia Ott |url=https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=nid%3D120939142 |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=portal.dnb.de}}</ref>
== Selected works and publications ==
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* ''Metamorphosen des Epos''. Sīrat al-Muǧāhidīn (Sīrat al-Amīra Dāt al-Himma) zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit. Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies (=CNWS publications 119), [[Leiden University|Universiteit Leiden]], Leiden 2003 (Dissertation), ISBN 90-5789-081-X.
* {{Cite journal |last= |first= |date=2003 |title=From the Coffeehouse into the Manuscript: the Storyteller and his Audience in the Manuscripts of an Arabic Epic |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/ormo/83/2/article-p443_12.xml |journal=Oriente Moderno |volume=83 |issue=2 |pages=443–451 |doi=10.1163/22138617-08302012 |issn=0030-5472|last1= Ott|first1= Claudia}}▼
* {{Cite book |last=Ott |first=Claudia |chapter=Paradise, Alexander the Great and the Arabian Nights: Some New Insights Based on an Unpublished Manuscript |title=Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam (2 vols.) |date=2017 |work= |pages=922–930 |editor-last=Günther |editor-first=Sebastian |editor2-last=Lawson |editor2-first=Todd |url=https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004333154/B9789004333154_044.xml |place=Leiden |publisher=Brill |doi=10.1163/9789004333154_044 |isbn=978-90-04-33315-4}}▼
* ''Enno Littmann und seine Übersetzung von 1001 Nacht''. In: Karlheinz Wiegmann (ed.): ''Hin und weg. Tübingen in aller Welt,'' Kulturamt, Tübingen 2007 (Tübinger Kataloge, Band 77), pp. 111–123, ISBN 978-3-910090-77-4
▲* {{Cite book |last=Ott |first=Claudia |chapter=Paradise, Alexander the Great and the Arabian Nights: Some New Insights Based on an Unpublished Manuscript |title=Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam (2 vols.) |date=2017 |work= |pages=922–930 |editor-last=Günther |editor-first=Sebastian |editor2-last=Lawson |editor2-first=Todd |url=https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004333154/B9789004333154_044.xml |place=Leiden |publisher=Brill |doi=10.1163/9789004333154_044 |isbn=978-90-04-33315-4}}
▲* {{Cite journal |last= |first= |date=2003 |title=From the Coffeehouse into the Manuscript: the Storyteller and his Audience in the Manuscripts of an Arabic Epic |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/ormo/83/2/article-p443_12.xml |journal=Oriente Moderno |volume=83 |issue=2 |pages=443–451 |doi=10.1163/22138617-08302012 |issn=0030-5472}}
== Awards and distinctions ==
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* 2019 [[Artist-in-residence|Writer-in-Residence]] Chretzeturm, [[Stein am Rhein]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Claudia Ott April - Juni 2019 - Künstlerresidenz Chretzeturm |url=https://www.chretzeturm.ch/de/stipendiaten/claudia-ott.html |access-date=2019-07-09}}<!-- auto-translated from German by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
* 2019 Award of the cultural foundation Erlangen for her translation of ''Tausendundeine Nacht''
* 2024 Gerda Henkel Foundation's Tandem Fellowship<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2024 |title=Claudia Ott - The Hakim epic and its Gotha manuscript |url=https://www.uni-erfurt.de/en/gotha-research-centre/scholarships/gerda-henkel-fellowships/fellows/claudia-ott |access-date=2024-09-16 |website=www.uni-erfurt.de |publisher=Universität Erfurt |language=en-GB}}</ref>
== See also ==
* [[List of One Thousand and One Nights characters|List of ''One Thousand and One Nights'' characters]]
* [[List of stories within One Thousand and One Nights|List of stories within ''One Thousand and One Nights'']]
* [[Arabic literature]]
* [[Hanna Diyab]]▼
* [[Antoine Galland|Antoine Gallard]]
▲* [[Hanna Diyab]]
*
== References ==
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* [https://www.tausendundeine-nacht.com/ Official webpage]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ott, Claudia}}
<nowiki>
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1968 births]]
[[Category:Free University of Berlin alumni]]
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[[Category:Translators to German]]
[[Category:Translators from Arabic]]
[[Category:Non-fiction literatureArabists]]
[[Category:ArabistsGerman women musicians]]</nowiki>
[[Category:People from Tübingen]]