Philip Boehm

Philip Boehm (born 1958) is an American playwright, theater director and literary translator. Born in Texas, he was educated at Wesleyan University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the State Academy of Theater in Warsaw, Poland.

Boehm is the founder of Upstream Theater in St. Louis, which has become known for its productions of foreign plays. Fluent in English, German and Polish, he has directed plays in Poland and Slovakia. His own written work includes several plays such as Mixtitlan, Soul of a Clone, Alma en venta, The Death of Atahualpa and Return of the Bedbug.

Boehm has translated over thirty novels and plays by German and Polish writers, including Herta Müller, Franz Kafka and Hanna Krall. Nonfiction translations include A Woman in Berlin and Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto. For these translations he has received fellowships from the NEA and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, as well as several awards including the Schlegel-Tieck Prize, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, and the Ungar German Translation Award.

Selected translations and adaptations

 * Anonymous: A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary (Schlegel-Tieck Prize, ATA Ungar Award)
 * Ingeborg Bachmann: Malina
 * Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz: The Passenger
 * Bertolt Brecht: In the Jungle of the City (play)
 * Georg Büchner: Woyzeck (adaptation) (play)
 * Stefan Chwin: Death in Danzig (Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award)
 * Ida Fink: Traces: Stories (co-translator: Francine Prose)
 * Aleksander Fredro: Sweet Revenge (play)
 * Wilhelm Genazino: The Shoe Tester of Frankfurt
 * Michal Grynberg, ed.: Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto
 * Christoph Hein: Settlement
 * Christoph Hein: Willenbrock
 * Christoph Hein: The Tango Player
 * Anna Janko: A Little Annihilation
 * Franz Kafka: Letters to Milena
 * Arthur Koestler: Darkness at Noon (American Translators Association's Ungar German Translation Award)
 * Hanna Krall: Chasing the King of Hearts (Found in Translation Award, PEN Los Angeles Award, Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award)
 * Lucía Laragione: Cooking with Elisa (play)
 * Herta Müller: The Fox Was Ever The Hunter
 * Herta Müller: The Hunger Angel (Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, National Translation Award, ATA Ungar Award)
 * Herta Müller: The Appointment (co-translator: Michael Hulse)
 * Albert Ostermaier: Infected (play)
 * Minka Pradelski: Here Comes Mrs. Kugelman
 * Rafik Schami: Damascus Nights
 * Peter Schneider: Couplings: A Novel
 * Peter Schneider: The German Comedy (co-translator: Leigh Hafrey)
 * Tilman Spengler: Spinal Discord: One Man's Wrenching Tale of Woe in Twenty-Four (Vertebral) Segments
 * Ilija Trojanow: The Lamentations of Zeno
 * Ingmar Villqist: Helver's Night (play)
 * Gregor von Rezzori: An Ermine in Czernopol (Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, PEN USA Award)
 * Christine Wunnicke: The Fox and Dr. Shimamura (Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize)