The archive of the bilingual German/English literary magazine Dimension, which served as an influential forum for contemporary arts and letters and was the first to print works by some now- famous German authors, has been acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The archive -- which includes manuscripts, correspondence and graphic art, as well as video and audio tapes -- is a gift to the library from alumnus A. Leslie Willson Ph.D. '54, professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, who founded Dimension in 1968 and served for 26 years as the journal's editor.
In more than 80 regular and special issues, Dimension published the work of hundreds of German-language authors. Poems, plays, essays, short stories, radio plays and excerpts from novels appeared in the original German with English translations on the facing page. The journal also featured graphics, often by writers who are also gifted as artists, such as Gunter Grass. Other well-known authors whose works appeared in Dimension include Peter Bichsel, Gerhard Kopf, Gunter Kunert, Siegfried Lenz, Ernst Jandl, Friederike Mayrocker, Gabriele Wohmann and Christa Wolf. Some of these writers were discovered by Professor Willson, who also donated his working library of 3,000 titles to the Yale library.
Professor Willson founded Dimension to improve the quality of translation and to redress the time lag between the appearance of new literary writing in German and its transmission to English readers. Its success in both endeavors brought international regard for the journal. "With wry humor, Professor Willson points out that this international forum found its somewhat incongruous home 'deep in the heart of Texas,'" says Christa Sammons, curator of the Beinecke's Collection of German Literature.
The journal employed both experienced translators and beginners, who perfected their work under Professor Willson's direction. "A lively communication among the authors, translators and editor created important personal links for the mutual exchange of ideas," says Ms. Sammons. "Because of Professor Willson's exacting editorial policies and because he has come to count many of the authors he published among his personal friends, the Dimension archive and library are of extraordinary richness and depth. Many of the books bear grateful inscriptions from their authors, while the manuscripts and correspondence generated by Leslie Willson's editorial work document the fundamental process of the making of literature. These archival materials are enhanced by audio and video tapes of live interviews with many authors, as well as by original graphics contributed to Dimension."
Professor Willson, who is the cofounder of the American Literary Translators Association and served as its first president, is noted for his own translations of plays, poems and stories by contemporary German-language authors. These include Michael Kruger's novels "The Man in the Tower" and "Himmelfarb"; Gerhard Kopf's novels "There Is No Borges" and "Papa's Suitcase" and the forthcoming translations of Mr. Kopf's "Innerfar" and "Bluff, or The Southern Cross"; as well as Ulla Berkewicz's "Angels Are Black and White." Mr. Willson is a corresponding member of the Darmstadt Academy for Language and Literature and the Mainz Academy of the Sciences and Literature. His honors include the Bundesverdienstkreuz Erster Klasse from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Goethe Medaille from the Goethe-Institut in Munich. He is a member of PEN Center New York.
The Beinecke Library's Collection of German Literature includes the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana and the Faber du Faur library of German baroque literature. The papers of Hermann Broch, Helen and Kurt Wolff and Thomas Mann are among its 20th-century holdings.