Margot Bettauer Dembo

Margot Bettauer Dembo (10 January 1928 – 10 July 2019) was a German-born American translator of fiction and non-fiction. She translated writing from German to English, and is known for her translations of works by Judith Hermann, Robert Gernhardt, Joachim Fest, Ödön von Horvath, Feridun Zaimoglu, and Hermann Kant. Her work won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize and the Goethe-Institut/Berlin Translator's Prize. She translated multiple non-fiction memoirs and historical accounts of World War II, as well as several works of fiction.

Career Dembo worked as a freelance editor and translator of works from German to English. Her editorial work included editing publications for W.W. Norton and the American Museum of Natural History. Solomon Perel's Europa, Europa (1997) and Hans-Joachim Maaz's Behind the Wall – The Inner Life of Communist Germany (1995). and Anna Seghers. Shorter translations by Dembo appeared in Granta and No Man's Land.

Dembo translated writer Judith Hermann's debut book of stories, Sommerhaus, Später, work that won her the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize in 2003.

Biography Dembo was born in Mannheim, Germany on 10 January 1928. Her family emigrated to the United States of America, and she lived in Toms River, in New Jersey, later moving to Ancramdale in New York state. She died on 10 July 2019, in New York.

Awards and honors

2003 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for translating to English Judith Hermann's Summerhouse, later (Sommerhaus, Später) 1994 Goethe-Institut/Berlin Translator's Prize