The Stephen Spender Trust has announced the appointment of Charlotte Ryland as the new Director of the Trust, beginning March 26th 2018.
Following a doctorate at UCL on the poet Paul Celan, Charlotte moved to Oxford to become Lecturer in German at The Queen’s College. She is the editor of ‘New Books in German’, the project that promotes German-language literature internationally. She is also Postdoctoral Researcher on the ‘Writing Brecht’ project based in Oxford, which draws to a close this year. Charlotte has published widely on post-Holocaust literature (including the monograph Paul Celan’s Encounters with Surrealism) and has edited student editions of German plays for Methuen Drama. Her translation of a dramatic fragment by Brecht is forthcoming in a volume co-edited with Tom Kuhn (Bloomsbury, 2019).
Charlotte is committed to languages outreach and to widening participation at university level, and was the founding co-ordinator of the Oxford German Network, the first university-led cultural network. She is currently researching the use of literature and translation in schools outreach. Charlotte lives with her family in Oxford.
David Rogers, Chair of the Trustees says: We are hugely excited to have Charlotte joining us as Director. The unique combination of expertise and talents that she brings to the role will not only ensure the continued success of our established initiatives but it also promises to help the Trust open up new areas of Spender’s influence to the public and the academic world.
Charlotte says: I am delighted to be joining the Stephen Spender Trust, and look forward to building on its excellent work with international literature and translation. Spender’s own focus on bridging cultures and giving a voice to international writers is reflected perfectly in the Trust’s activities, and this focus feels as important now as it did during his lifetime.