Stefan Weidner (born 1967 in Cologne) is a German scholar of Islamic cultures, writer, and translator. Due to his contributions to the reception of Arabic and other Middle Eastern literatures, the German scholar of Modern Oriental Studies Stefan Wild described him as a "leading mediator of Middle Eastern poetry and prose into German".
Already as a schoolboy, Weidner travelled to North Africa and made his first experiences with Muslim society.[1] He later studied Modern Oriental studies, German studies and philosophy at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, University of Damascus, University of California, Berkeley, and Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Weidner is mainly known as author, translator, editor and literary critic of Arabic literature in Germany.
From 2001 until the last issue in 2016, he was editor-in-chief of the magazine Fikrun wa Fann,[2] published by the Goethe-Institut and aimed to contribute to the dialogue between Western and Islamic-influenced cultures. He has translated numerous Arab poets, including Adonis and Mahmud Darwish. Since October 2012, Weidner has been a founding member of the Akademie der Künste der Welt in Cologne.[3]
Weidner is a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung and the writers' association PEN Centre Germany. Among others, he has written for the Süddeutsche Zeitung[4][5] the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung[6] Die Zeit[7][8] and Qantara.de.[9]
His 400-page non-fiction book 1001 Buch: Die Literaturen des Orients has been described as an expert "walk through the centuries of the literatures of the Orient".[10] Modern Oriental Studies scholar Stefan Wild commented on the book as follows: "Now, with 1001 Buch, he [Weidner] has succeeded in his greatest coup yet: an overall view of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman/Turkish literature from the seventh century to the present day."[11]
