Goethe-Institut Bangladesh hosted a book launch—Bengali translations and reading of Bertolt Brecht and Hans Magnus Enzensberger on 20 September evening. The books had been translated from German into Bengali by Subroto Saha. The audience from Bangladesh thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and the lively reading.

Welcoming the audience and Subroto Saha, Dr. Kirsten Hackenbroch, Director of Goethe-Institut Bangladesh, said ‘With Brecht and Enzensberger we will today be introduced to two important witnesses of the turmoils of the 20th century in Europe. Engaging with their observations of the state of the world, can never cease to be relevant to us’.

To the audience Subroto Saha said, ‘The context of the German poetry of the twentieth century came to mind when Ryan María Reale and Bertolt Brecht all came to the fore.’

He also explained the reason and story behind the translation of Bertolt Brecht and Hans Magnus Enzensberger’books.

Manjurul Islam discussed in detail the political times that influenced Bertolt Brecht and Hans Magnus Enzensberger and in a conversation with Subrata Saha. Tuku Mozniul and Nayla Tarannum Chowdhury read the poems and short stories.

Subroto Saha teaches German since 1994 at the Goethe-Institut Kolkata, where he also trains German teachers.

He has been translating prose and poetry from German to Bengali since 1997 and has participated in numerous translation projects and bilingual author programs. He has translated Rose Ausländer, Ulrike Draesner, Günter Grass, Josef Winkler, Daniel Kehlmann, Bertolt Brecht, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Jan Wagner among others. His compilation of 223 poems by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1950-2015) has been recognized by the publisher Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin and the author as the most comprehensive and successful collection.

Presently he is involved in the first ‘Social Translating Project’. In November 2018, he will be leading the first ‘Translator Expedition’ (Berlin-Kolkata) as part of the ‘TOLEDO – Translators for Cultural Exchange’ project in Kolkata.

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. From 1935 to the fifties Bertolt Brecht wrote the stories of Mr. Keuner. They show the author as a master of short prose, a master of clear factual forms and an aggressive, social critique.

Not only Germany’s most important poet, Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a provocative cultural essayist and one of Europe’s leading political thinkers. This is intelligent and pointed poetry in the tradition of Brecht, humanely political and generously engaged. The poems have the ease and lightness of real mastery. They are moral in their insistence that human life can be lived well or badly, that it is up to us to choose well and to act wisely.