Mirjam Pressler Books in Order

Mirjam Pressler was a German writer and literary translator, born Marianne Gunkel in Darmstadt on June 18, 1940. She studied art and languages, worked various jobs before becoming an author and translator, and died in Landshut on January 16, 2019.

Sources: juedischesmuseum.de (opens in a new tab)mirjampressler.de (opens in a new tab)

Pressler converted to Judaism in 1964 after meeting Jehuda Pressler and adopted the first name Mirjam. Jewish identity, history, persecution, and remembrance later became central concerns in her work.

Sources: juedischesmuseum.de (opens in a new tab)akademie-kjl.de (opens in a new tab)

She was a major translator into German, working from languages including Dutch and Hebrew. Her best-known translation is Anne Frank’s diary; her work became the basis for the Anne Frank Fonds’ authorized edition, which was then translated into other languages.

Sources: akademie-kjl.de (opens in a new tab)juedischesmuseum.de (opens in a new tab)

Her upbringing in foster families and a children’s home, along with her early passion for reading, shaped her focus on vulnerable childhoods, isolation, family conflict, and exclusion. Her later writing also drew deeply on Jewish life, antisemitism, the Holocaust, and historical memory.

Source: akademie-kjl.de (opens in a new tab)

She received the German Children’s and Young Adult Literature Prize’s special translation award in 1994, the prize for an individual work in 1995, and the special award for her authorial oeuvre in 2010; in 2018 she received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit. Her legacy combines psychologically perceptive youth literature with an important contribution to bringing Anne Frank’s writing and Jewish history to German readers.

Sources: jugendliteratur.org (opens in a new tab)jugendliteratur.org (opens in a new tab)juedischesmuseum.de (opens in a new tab)akademie-kjl.de (opens in a new tab)