Translator and Writer
Linda Frazee Baker † (b. December 16, 1946, d. September 2, 2020) was a writer and a literary translator of both poetry and prose.
She translated works of fiction by Ingeborg Bachmann, Max Frisch, and Ödön Von Horváth, as well as poetry of Esther Dischereit. Her translations have appeared in The Guardian, Conjunctions, World Literature Today, New England Review, and elsewhere. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Sakura Review, and Drunken Boat.
She lived in Germany for four years, during which time she was a lecturer at the Englisches Seminar of the Westfälisches Wilhelm Universität in Münster. In the U.S. she had a distinguished career as a technical editor, technical writer, communications analyst, writing trainer, and senior analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, supporting integrity in American public policy on a variety of key issues in service to the U.S. Congress.
She received a master’s in Fiction from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in Renaissance English literature from the University of California at Berkeley. She honed her craft at Breadloaf School workshops and public readings at many venues in New York City and elsewhere.
A member of the American Literary Translators Association and the PEN Translation Committee, she was Assistant Editor from 2016 to 2020 at No Man’s Land: New German Literature in English Translation.
Much of Linda’s writing and translating focused on the nature of identity and issues of moral responsibility, both individual and collective. Her works often examined how injustice, alienation, and exile shape the interior lives of people. She brought an ironic eye to writing, revealing the simultaneous absurdity and seriousness of situations, with dialogue uncovering the complications of feelings. Linda translated anti-fascist writers of mid-20th Century German literature whose works encompassed such themes, and found common voice with contemporary German author Esther Dischereit.
Linda’s creative writing and memoires were also grounded in her adventurous travel experiences. She snorkeled and dove in many parts of the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean, kayaked in the Arctic and the Chesapeake Bay, sailed the Grenadines, and spent several weeks flying in a small plane across Alaska. She ventured to many corners of Europe, Asia, and Latin America. She is survived by her husband, Michael A. Replogle and his four children and four grandchildren.