Wolfgang Krege

Wolfgang Krege (born 1 February 1939, Berlin; died 13 April 2005, Stuttgart) was a German author and translator. Wolfgang Krege was born and raised in Berlin. In the early 1960s he began studying philosophy at the Free University of Berlin. Afterwards he worked as editor of lexica, as copywriter and editor for publishing houses. In the 1970s he started translating texts, initially focusing on non-fiction. He gained a greater readership by his translation of J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Silmarillion. In the 1990s he retranslated The Hobbit; compared to the earlier translation by Walter Scherf, who had left out or shortened most of the poems and songs embedded into the plot, and which moreover contained illustrations by children's books illustrator Klaus Ensikat, Krege's version rather appeals to a more grown-up readership. Another difference is made by a lack of adherence to the original: Krege has a tendency to write a funnier and fancier book than the original Hobbit. Thereby various sentences are interpreted in a way which cannot any more be regarded as translation but is clearly new script. Additionally, Krege's version features a number of modern words like "Hurricane" which can easily be seen atypical for the medievally and European inspired Middle-earth (although Tolkien's original as well does contain words like "football" or "express train"). Krege's translation of place names though is closer to the original script. Where "Rivendell" remained untranslated by Scherf, Krege used Bruchtal and standardised the place names according to the German translation of The Lord of the Rings by Margaret Carroux and E.-M. von Freymann (Klett-Cotta 1969/1970). He also eradicated earlier misinterpretations of English "Elf" to German "Fee" (fairy), where Tolkien explicitly wished to distinguish his elves from the diminutive airy-winged fairies. Krege's retranslation of The Lord of the Rings (Ger.: Der Herr der Ringe) is highly disputed among fans.