Helmut W. Pesch (born 30 August 1952) is a German fantasy author, illustrator, translator, and publishing editor. He is known as a Tolkien scholar. He won the Deutscher Fantasy Preis in 1982.^[1]

Helmut W. Pesch was born in 1952. He grew up in Kevelaer on the Lower Rhine, after graduating from high school, he studied English, Art History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Cologne and the University of Glasgow. In 1981 he earned his PhD on the subject "Fantasy: Theory and history of a literary genre". Published in 1982, it was the first study in Germany on fantasy literature. Pesch was awarded the German Fantasy Prize for this in 1982.^[1] He is active as an illustrator and cartographer or translator (from English) and as a literary critic and linguist. From 1987 he also worked as a publishing editor for fiction at the Verlagsgruppe Lübbe and had been an editor for digital media at Bastei Entertainment since October 2011, where he was program manager from 2013 until his retirement in September 2015, initially at Bastei Entertainment and from 2014 in the newly founded Content Management department, which deals with material development and crossmedia projects.^[2]

Pesch writes that he research interests are fantasy, genre theory, and Tolkien studies. In 1984 he published an anthology for students titled J. R. R. Tolkien, der Mythenschöpfer ("J. R. R. Tolkien: The Mythmaker"); he followed this in 1994 with a volume of his own essays and lectures, Das Licht von Mittelerde ("The Light of Middle-earth").^[2]

Pesch contributed cover pictures and maps to the fantasy series Dragon - Söhne von Atlantis [de], published by Pabel Verlag KG from 1973 to 1975. He provided the fantasy series Mythor [de], published by Pabel-Moewig Verlag [de] from 1980, with illustrations and maps. His maps have been used in German editions of the novels of the fantasy author David Eddings.

From 1984, Pesch translated novels by authors including Lloyd Alexander, James Branch Cabell, Eric Rücker Eddison, Brian Lumley, Dennis L. McKiernan, Naomi Mitchison, John Myers Myers, Diana L. Paxson, Tom Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien, Joan D. Vinge and Catherine Webb from English to German.^[3] His translation of Dennis L. McKiernan's Drachenkampf (originally Dragondoom) was nominated for the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis [de] 1993 and voted sixth place there.^[4]

He has edited novels by Ken Follett and David Baldacci, Stephen King, Peter Berling, Johannes K. Soyener [de] and Wolfram zu Mondfeld, Thomas Gifford, Andreas Eschbach and Wolfgang Hohlbein.^[2]

Pesch started writing in the late 1960s, and wrote some fan stories in the early 1970s. After that he worked mainly in the field of translations and theoretical work with fantasy, which inspired him to write a total of five novels, some together with Horst von Allwörden [de].^[2]

Pesch is considered an expert on Tolkien. In 1984 Corian-Verlag [de] published his J. R.R. Tolkien. The Creator of Myths, a critical anthology of Tolkien's work. He is the author of articles such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Linguistic Aesthetics, Tolkien 2001. An Inventory and A World of Language. On the concept of language in J. R. R. Tolkien. He edited the German edition of Robert Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-earth.