Ray-Güde Mertin
German literary critic and translator
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Ray-Güde Mertin (July 19, 1943 – January 13, 2007) was a German literary critic, Romance philologist, and professor who promoted Lusophone and Latin American authors, particularly Brazilians, in the German-language literary market. She translated many writers, including Clarice Lispector, Murilo Rubião, António Lobo Antunes, and José Saramago.[1]
Biography
Born in Marburg, she completed her secondary education at the German School of Barcelona. She studied Romance languages and literatures at the Free University of Berlin, graduating in 1969.[2] She worked as a DAAD German-language teacher in both Campinas and São Paulo before becoming professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas.[3] From 1969 to 1971, she also taught German literature at the State University of Campinas. In 1978, she earned a doctorate from the University of Cologne with a thesis on Ariano Suassuna.[2]
In 1982, she founded the literary agency Literarische Agentur Dr. Ray-Güde Mertin.[4] She represented several authors, including Lygia Fagundes Telles, Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, Lya Luft, Pedro Rosa Mendes, Marçal Aquino, Caio Fernando Abreu, and Mia Couto.[5] In 1984, she was appointed professor of Brazilian literature at Goethe University Frankfurt. Described as an ''informal ambassador of the Portuguese language in the world'',[6] she was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in 2005.[7]