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Professor Miriam Shlesinger died on 10 November 2012 It is with great sadness that we announce that our friend and colleague Miriam Shlesinger has passed away. In 2000 Miriam set up and then ran the EST Working Group on Training. She was a member of the EST Executive Board from 2001 to 2004. In 2002 (Newsletter 20) the EST expressed its condemnation of her exclusion from St Jerome Publishing. Miriam was a practising translator and interpreter, a teacher of translation and interpreting, one of the leading international scholars of interpreting, a brilliant self-effacing style-editor, a tireless co-editor of journals and collective publications, and a staunch defender of human rights, at one stage serving as President of Amnesty International Israel. Miriam was Professor at Bar Ilan University, Israel, where she taught from 1978 and was Director of the Language Policy Research Center. Her Masters dissertation broke new ground in the study of translation universals, while her doctoral research centered on cognitive processes in simultaneous interpreting. She worked asco-editor, with Franz Pöchhacker, of the Interpreting Studies Reader (Routledge 2002) and, from 2003, of the journal Interpreting (John Benjamins), as well as Associate Editor of the Benjamins Translation Library. In recent years, her interests came to include corpus-based translation studies, community interpreting, sign language interpreting, the sociology of translators and interpreters as professional groups, and the self-representation of translators and interpreters. Miriam was CETRA Professor in 2007, the same year in which Franz Pöchhacker, Arnt L. Jakobsen and Inger Mees edited Interpreting Studies and Beyond: A Tribute to Miriam Shlesinger. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur Press. Miriam held an Honorary Doctorate from the Copenhagen Business School (2001), the 2010 Danica Seleskovitch Prize, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Israel Translators Association (2011). She is much missed.
More at http://www.est-translationstudies.org/news/2012_shlesinger.html
ZAMORA. El escritor, filólogo y traductor Agustín García Calvo, nacido en Zamora en 1926, murió ayer en su ciudad natal, después de una vida con una trayectoria intelectual marcada por su rebeldía ante el poder establecido y en la que ganó tres Premios Nacionales. El fallecimiento del escritor, que será enterrado hoy en el cementerio de San Atilano sin ceremonia religiosa, ha desencadenado una sucesión de reacciones desde diversos colectivos, sobre todo del mundo cultural y desde la sociedad zamorana. Su compañera durante 36 años, Isabel Escudero, señaló a Efe que García Calvo era "el último combatiente contra las mentiras de la realidad". La poetisa recordó que el escritor y filósofo estuvo hasta el último momento, "y siempre de viva voz como el último Sócrates", hablando a los jóvenes, que le siguen por centenares. "Hace quince días fue a la tertulia pública que se celebra los miércoles en el Ateneo de Madrid y a la que acuden un centenar de personas, en su mayoría jóvenes, para debatir cuestiones de la realidad, de la física, las matemáticas. Es algo muy vivo y muy único". SU TRAYECTORIA García Calvo se doctoró en Filología Clásica por la Universidad de Salamanca, donde ejerció como profesor de Latín, fue catedrático de instituto y obtuvo también la cátedra de Filología Latina en la Universidad de Sevilla. Fue uno de los catedráticos perseguidos por el régimen franquista y, debido a las revueltas estudiantiles de febrero de 1965, fue apartado de la cátedra. Su obra mereció el reconocimiento de tres Premios Nacionales, en concreto el de Ensayo en 1990, de Literatura Dramática en 1999 y de Traducción al conjunto de su obra en 2006. Muchos de sus trabajos los publicó en sus propias editoriales, Lumia y Lucina, cuya sede estaba en la gran casa en la que vivía, en el casco histórico de Zamora, en la Rúa de los Notarios. El autor expuso su teoría general del lenguaje en una trilogía con los títulos Del lenguaje (1983), De la construcción (Del lenguaje II), ambos libros editados en la década de los años ochenta, y Del aparato (Del lenguaje III), en 1999. García Calvo, centrado sobre todo en la poesía, escribió también teatro, novela y ensayo, género este último en el que publicó títulos como Lalia (1973), ¿Qué es el Estado? (1977), Contra el tiempo (1993) y De Dios (1996). Su actividad como traductor ha abarcado textos de Shakespeare, y diversos del latín y el griego, entre los que se encuentra Los carboneros, de Aristófanes. Una de las últimas obras en las que participó García Calvo fue el documental de Basilio Martín Patino sobre el movimiento de indignados del 15-M, y que utilizó el nombre de uno de sus poemas, Libre te quiero, para dar título a una cinta que se presentó en la sección Tiempo de Historia de la última edición de la Seminci.
Frank Moore Cross, Biblical Scholar, Dies at 91
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: October 19, 2012
Frank Moore Cross, an influential Harvard biblical scholar who specialized in the ancient cultures and languages that helped shape the Hebrew Bible and who played a central role in interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls, died on Tuesday in Rochester. He was 91. Enlarge This Image The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon
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The cause was complications of pneumonia, family members said. “When you walked into his classes, you felt you were on the frontier of knowledge in the field,” said Peter Machinist, who studied under Dr. Cross as an undergraduate at Harvard and now holds the endowed professorship there that Dr. Cross had held until his retirement in 1992. “Whatever happened in the field would come to him first, before it got published, because people wanted to know what he thought.” Dr. Cross grew up in Birmingham, Ala., the son of a Protestant minister. After earning a divinity degree, he went to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and became one of the most prominent students of William F. Albright, whose work is part of the foundation of biblical archaeological studies. The field was shaken in 1947 after a Bedouin goatherd stumbled across ancient scrolls in a cave west of the Dead Sea. More scrolls were eventually found in other caves near the site of an ancient settlement called Qumran, and many people believed that they would reveal new insights into the Bible.
Michael Henry Heim, an internationally known translator who created highly praised English versions of such masterpieces as "Death in Venice" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," has died. He was...
Translator Michael Henry Heim's secret gift: more translations CommentsMichael Henry Heim in 2001 (Stefano Paltera / Special to The Times) By Hector Tobar
October 4, 2012, 2:54 p.m.
Earlier this week, The Times reported on the death of Michael Henry Heim, 69, one of the leading figures of the small, unseen and largely unknown circle of men and women who translate the world's literature into English. Heim, a UCLA scholar, spoke six language fluently and could read six more, and he translated works by authors such as Gunter Grass, Bertolt Brecht, Milan Kundera, Thomas Mann and Anton Chekhov into English. But what the world didn't know until his death is that Heim had privately funded dozens more works by other translators. Heim was the anonymous benefactor whose gift of $734,000 created the PEN Translation Fund in 2003. On his translation-focused blog Three Percent, publisher Chad Post revealed the news Tuesday. The New York-based PEN American Center followed up the next day with a press release confirming the donation. With their gift, Heim and his wife Priscilla "created a legacy that recognizes the unique place of translators and translation in our literary life," Peter Godwin, president of PEN American Center, said in a statement. "He stood for that because he knew so well how translation serves us all by providing the key in our own language to all the world’s literature.” Translating literature is a low-paid job that's also highly skilled and labor-intensive. And the PEN Translation Fund has helped pay for some 100 translations in a variety of languages, including Armenian, Basque, Estonian, Farsi, Lithuanian and Mongolian. As a lover of Latin American literature, I'm especially grateful to the fund for helping to bring the works of writers such as Roberto Bolaño and Horacio Castellanos Moya (arguably El Salvador's greatest living writer) to English-language readers. So how did Heim, who certainly didn't get rich as a translator, come up with the money that established the fund? According to PEN, it began with the death benefit paid to his mother when Heim's father, a Hungarian composer and pastry chef serving in the U.S. military, was killed in 1945.
Translator made $734,000 anonymous donation to PEN
Published: October 3, 2012 The Associated Press NEW YORK — An internationally celebrated translator also turns out to have been a secret patron of his craft. Michael Henry Heim, who died at age 73 on Sept. 29, donated $734,000 to the PEN Translation Fund that helps support translations of foreign language works. Heim and his wife, Priscilla, established the PEN fund in 2003 and gave the money anonymously. The PEN American Center, of which Heim was a longtime member, announced Wednesday that he and his wife were the benefactors. Heim was known for his translations of Thomas Mann, Milan Kundera and many other authors. PEN is a worldwide organization of writers and editors. Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2012/10/03/2200183/translator-made-734000-anonymous.html#storylink=cpy
NEW YORK — An internationally celebrated translator also turns out to have been a secret patron of his craft. Michael Henry Heim, who died at age 73 on Sept. 29, donated $734,000 to the PEN Translation Fund that helps support translations of foreign language works. Heim and his wife, Priscilla, established the PEN fund in 2003 and gave the money anonymously. The PEN American Center, of which Heim was a longtime member, announced Wednesday that he and his wife were the benefactors. Loading...
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Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post Heim was known for his translations of Thomas Mann, Milan Kundera and many other authors. PEN is a worldwide organization of writers and editors. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Michael Henry Heim, UCLA professor who translated major works, dies By The Associated Press
Posted: 10/02/2012 07:52:39 PM PDT
Updated: 10/02/2012 08:36:08 PM PDT Michael Henry Heim, an internationally known translator who created highly praised English versions of such masterpieces as "Death in Venice" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," has died. He was 69.
Heim who taught Slavic languages and literature at UCLA for 40 years, died Saturday at his West Los Angeles home from complications of melanoma, the school said in an obituary.
"He was a theorist, a practitioner and a cultural activist, among the finest literary translators of the last half-century and a pioneer in the field of translation studies," said a statement from Ronald Vroon, the department chair.
Heim won numerous awards for his work translating Eastern European, Russian and German authors. He spoke or read a dozen languages.
"He put himself to sleep at night by learning vocabulary words in whatever language he was studying," said his wife, Priscilla Heim.
Heim translated Czech novelist Milan Kundera's bestselling "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting."
Prominent translator Michael Henry Heim dies
October 2, 2012 02:11 PM EST | LOS ANGELES — Michael Henry Heim, an internationally known translator who created highly praised English versions of such masterpieces as "Death in Venice" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," has died. He was 69. Heim who taught Slavic languages and literature at the University of California, Los Angeles for 40 years, died Saturday at his West Los Angeles home from complications of melanoma, the school said in an obituary. "He was a theorist, a practitioner and a cultural activist, among the finest literary translators of the last half-century and a pioneer in the field of translation studies," said a statement from Ronald Vroon, the department chair. Heim won numerous awards for his work translating Eastern European, Russian and German authors. He spoke or read a dozen languages. "He put himself to sleep at night by learning vocabulary words in whatever language he was studying," said his wife, Priscilla Heim. Heim translated Czech novelist Milan Kundera's bestselling "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting."
UCLA professor Michael Henry Heim, translator of ‘Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ dies
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By Associated Press, Published: October 2 LOS ANGELES — Michael Henry Heim, an internationally known translator who created highly praised English versions of such masterpieces as “Death in Venice” and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” has died. He was 69. Heim who taught Slavic languages and literature at the University of California, Los Angeles for 40 years, died Saturday at his West Los Angeles home from complications of melanoma, the school said in an obituary. 0
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Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post “He was a theorist, a practitioner and a cultural activist, among the finest literary translators of the last half-century and a pioneer in the field of translation studies,” said a statement from Ronald Vroon, the department chair. Heim won numerous awards for his work translating Eastern European, Russian and German authors. He spoke or read a dozen languages. “He put himself to sleep at night by learning vocabulary words in whatever language he was studying,” said his wife, Priscilla Heim. Heim translated Czech novelist Milan Kundera’s bestselling “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.”
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) - Michael Henry Heim, an internationally known translator who created highly praised English versions of such masterpieces as "Death in Venice" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," has died. He was 69. Heim who taught Slavic languages and literature at the University of California, Los Angeles for 40 years, died Saturday at his West Los Angeles home from complications of melanoma, the school said in an obituary. "He was a theorist, a practitioner and a cultural activist, among the finest literary translators of the last half-century and a pioneer in the field of translation studies," said a statement from Ronald Vroon, the department chair. Heim won numerous awards for his work translating Eastern European, Russian and German authors. He spoke or read a dozen languages. "He put himself to sleep at night by learning vocabulary words in whatever language he was studying," said his wife, Priscilla Heim. Heim translated Czech novelist Milan Kundera's bestselling "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting." His German translations included Gunter Grass's "My Century" and "Peeling the Onion," the first volume of Grass's two-volume memoir. His translation of Thomas Mann's classic "Death in Venice" from German won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize in 2005. Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/oct/02/prominent-translator-michael-henry-heim-dies/#ixzz28FrsJkft
- vcstar.com
Renowned Chinese translator Zheng Yonghui died Sunday morning, September 9, of illness. Zheng was born in Haiphong, Vietnam in 1918, but his hometown was Zhongshan, South China's Guangdong Province. He graduated from the Law School of Shanghai Aurora University at the age of 24. He then worked as an assistant professor at his alma mater. Zheng later taught French at the Institute of International Relations in Beijing. His teaching career ended when he was in his 80s, after seeing off his last postgraduate student. Zheng was respected as a professor and also for his remarkable achievements in literary translations, especially of French works. Publishing his first translation in 1933, Zheng Yonghui worked on many of the world's most famous masterpieces. His signature translation include Nana by Zolaesque, Quatre-Vingt-Treize by Hugo, and Salammbo by Flaubert.
Renowned Chinese translator Zheng Yonghui died Sunday morning, September 9, of illness. Zheng was born in Haiphong, Vietnam in 1918, but his hometown was Zhongshan, South China's Guangdong Province. He graduated from the Law School of Shanghai Aurora University at the age of 24. He then worked as an assistant professor at his alma mater. Zheng later taught French at the Institute of International Relations in Beijing. His teaching career ended when he was in his 80s, after seeing off his last postgraduate student. Zheng was respected as a professor and also for his remarkable achievements in literary translations, especially of French works. Publishing his first translation in 1933, Zheng Yonghui worked on many of the world's most famous masterpieces. His signature translation include Nana by Zolaesque, Quatre-Vingt-Treize by Hugo, and Salammbo by Flaubert. He also marked the translation mistakes found in Merimee's Colomba, translated by renowned Chinese translator Fu Lei (1908-66). It was confirmed that there were over 50 mistakes in the translated version of Fu, including misinterpretations and clerical errors. "We found mistakes when reading Colomba, but we never marked them down the way Zheng did," translator Yu Zhongxian said. Zheng was awarded the Translation Fellowship of France's Ministry of Culture in 1987 and took home the Lu Xun Literary Prize along with the Honorary Award of National Outstanding Literary Translation in 1998. "Zheng may be the translator who boasted the largest number of readers, due to the amount of translations he did," French literature expert Liu Mingjiu said.
Pretoria — Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande has expressed his deepest condolences on the death of internationally acclaimed linguist, academic and struggle veteran, Dr Neville Alexander. He described his passing on as a great loss to the intellectual community. Alexander passed away on Monday at his home in Grassy Park after a period of ill-health. "I had a lot of respect for Neville, for his contribution in the struggle for liberation - even though we come from two different left traditions, and we often disagreed on many things, I deeply respected him as a committed socialist intellectual and activist," Nzimande said. Nzimande shared with Dr Alexander a similar passion on the issue of language and the need to develop African languages as a critical dimension of the liberation and social emancipation of the majority of South Africans. In 2011, the minister hosted a roundtable that interrogated the state of African languages in universities, which was attended by representatives from the public higher education institutions, civil society and statutory bodies concerned with language development in the country. Nzimande said he admired Dr Alexander for having distinguished himself as an academic of note well beyond the age of 60, which exemplified the necessity for elder academics to continue playing a role, particularly in nurturing younger scholars.
PRESS RELEASE It is with great sadness that just as South Africa is finally about to finalise the South African Language Users Act, we learn of the death of Dr Neville Alexander. Dr Alexander will be remembered for his pioneering work in the field of language policy and planning in South Africa. He has been influential in respect of language policy development with various government departments, including Education. Neville Alexander was a member of the Western Cape Language Committee, since its inception in 1999 to 2005. He was one of the key members responsible for the conceptualisation and formulation of the Western Cape Language Policy which was launched on International Mother Language Day on 21 February 2005. He was a specialist in the field of multilingualism and mother tongue education, and was one of the key note speakers at the Conference on Multilingualism held on 20 February 2012. In my personal discussion with him during this symposium, I was struck by his commitment to multilingualism in a diverse society. I will remember him as an independent and lateral thinker on language and cultural rights. He devoted more than twenty years of his professional life to defend and preserve multilingualism in South Africa and became one of the major advocates of linguistic diversity. Neville Alexander will be sorely missed. Media enquiries:
Daryl Hine, 76, an admired poet who adhered to classical themes, complicated formal structures, and intricate rhyming patterns to explore themes of philosophy, history, and his own sexuality, died Monday in Evanston, Ill.
JOHANNESBURG: South African academic and distinguished linguist Neville Alexander, who spent time in jail with Nelson Mandela, died of cancer aged 75 on Monday, the University of Cape Town said.
Born in the southern town of Cradock in 1936, the mixed race activist would go on to campaign against apartheid in the 1950s and spend a decade on Robben Island.
Alexander obtained his doctorate in German at the University of Tuebingen in then West Germany in 1961.
Three years later he was convicted for conspiracy to commit sabotage in South Africa against the white minority regime, along with other members of the National Liberation Front, which he co-founded. He spent the next 10 years on Robben Island, a political prison off the coast of Cape Town.
One of Alexander's companions was Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in various jails before he was released and became South Africa's first black president in 1994.
Alexander taught other inmates history, while Mandela taught law and current presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj economics.
Released in 1974, the scholar joined Steve Biko's Black Consciousness Movement.
Alexander ran in the 1994 elections at the end of white minority rule with the Trotskyist Workers Organisation for Socialist Action, which won 0.02 percent in the poll.
Having joined the University of Cape Town, Alexander later focused on multilingualism in a nation discovering democracy and confronted with the increasing influence of English.
South Africa has 11 official languages, but English is often used as common language.
"He will always be remembered for his pioneering work on language policy, including his most recent work, focusing on the tension between multilingualism and the hegemony of the English language in the public sphere," said President Jacob Zuma in a statement.
Marvin Meyer, who has died aged 64, was an expert on Gnosticism whose translation of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas challenged the traditional portrayal of Judas Iscariot as the Apostle who betrayed Jesus.
6:31PM BST 24 Aug 2012
What we know as the New Testament – the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation – was actually born of thousands of texts and gospels circulated among the early Christians. Members of the new faith were subject to persecution, and the Church fathers felt that for the faith to survive, there had to be a unified belief system. Some time around AD 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon denounced all gospels but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as heretical. Later, about 50 years after Constantine’s conversion early in the fourth century, the New Testament became Christianity’s official text. Marvin Meyer
The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about 52 texts supposedly based upon the teachings of prophets and spiritual leaders, including Jesus, written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD. Many of them discovered, in 1945, in the form of papyrus scrolls in a jar buried in a cave in Upper Egypt. These writings offer profoundly differing accounts of the life and death of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Philip, for example, ridicules the virgin birth and Christ’s bodily resurrection; The Apocalypse of Paul also claims that Christ’s rise from the dead was spiritual, not physical; The Gospel of Mary suggests a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
ORANGE, Calif. (AP) - Marvin W. Meyer, whose translation of the ancient "Gospel of Judas" portrayed the biblical villain as a loyal follower of Jesus, has died. He was 64.
Helen Gurley Brown, the long-time editor-in-chief for Cosmopolitan magazine, has passed away at the age of 90. She took the editor-in-chief role in 1965, and held it for 32 years, before being replaced by Bonnie Fuller. Gurley Brown remained with publisher Hearst, however, keeping an editor role for the magazine’s 59 international editions, all the way up until her death. “Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry,” said Hearst CEO Frank Bennack. “She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential ‘Cosmo girl.’ She will be greatly missed.” Gurley Brown was also known for her best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl, which was published in 1962, when she was 40. She was married to film producer David Brown. Hearst shared the following letter from Bennack to staff:
MAEVE Binchy's wide circle of friends have paid glowing tributes to a well-loved author. Her husband Gordon Snell was at her side when she passed away after a short illness. The Lilac Bus author suffered greatly from arthritis, but pals said the determined, independent soul never complained. Taoiseach Enda Kenny led tributes today, describing her as "a national treasure". "Across Ireland and the world people are mourning and celebrating Maeve Binchy," he told the Herald. Maeve (72) had completed an incredible 16 novels over her career which sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. She had recently revealed to her fans that her health was failing. "My health isn't so good these days and I can't travel around to meet people the way I used to," she wrote on her website. "But I'm always delighted to hear from readers." The author spoke last month at the Dalkey Book Festival where she read from her most recent short story -- poignantly revealing it would be her last. Fellow author Cathy Kelly said this morning that the key to her success was writing about real people.
THE WRITER and journalist Maeve Binchy (72) died peacefully in a Dublin hospital last night after a short illness. Her husband Gordon Snell was by her side. She was probably one of the best-loved Irish writers of her generation, Born at Dalkey, Co Dublin, in May 1940, she was the eldest of four children. She is survived by her brother, Prof William Binchy, and sister Joan. Another sister, Renee, died some years ago. As she wrote on her website: “I was the big bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous and anxious to be a saint. A settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith. I was terrified that I might see a Vision like St Bernadette or the Children at Fatima and be a martyr instead. My school friends accused me of making this up but I never looked up into trees in case I saw Our Lady beckoning to me.” She attended the Holy Child Convent in Killiney, then UCD and worked for a time as a teacher at various schools in Dublin before she began writing for The Irish Times. In 1968 she was appointed its Women’s Editor. It was not what her mother intended. Maeve wrote: “My mother hoped I would meet a nice doctor or barrister or accountant who would marry me and take me to live in what is now called Fashionable Dublin Four. But she felt that this was a vain hope. I was a bit loud to make a nice professional wife, and anyway, I was too keen on spending my holidays in far flung places to meet any of these people.” She spent time in those years “on the decks of cheap boats, or working in kibbutzim in Israel or minding children as camp counsellors in the United States”.
Humayun Ahmed touched millions of hearts through his simple, lucid writing depicting the joys and struggles of regular Bengalis. ... Humayun, the most popular novelist in Bangladesh, was laid to rest under the lychee tree in Nuhash Palli, his ranch in Gazipur, named after his elder son. His death on July 19th in New York, following a10-month battle with colon cancer, triggered an unprecedented outpouring of grief across Bangladesh and beyond. "Humayun Ahmed's body belonged to the writer but the soul belonged to us," wrote Afsan Chowdhury, a columnist, on bdnews24.com. "It was not just grief for the departed but pain of the knowledge that no writer shall probably ever again depict so well what was in our own face, our fate, us." Indeed, few deaths have been mourned like his in the country's history, a testament to the millions of hearts he touched through his writings for nearly four decades, painting with lucid, graphic words the middle-class sensibilities, its yearnings, its joy, its sorrow.
Dmitri Nabokov, the only child of the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, died in Switzerland in the first hours of Thursday, Feb. 23. Like his father, Dmitri went — in the words of one of his attendants — “light as a butterfly.” Like his father 35 years ago, and at 77, almost the same age (they were both buried at 78), he succumbed to a pulmonary infection. He had been a professional opera singer, and a racer of fast boats and faster cars. But according to his own father, whom he often referred to as “Nabokov,” he had also been — perhaps above all else in the end — his “best translator,” devoting the last two decades of his life to translating his father’s earlier work from Russian to English and Italian.
Enlarge This Image Courtesy of the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir and Dmitri Nabokov.
Related Times Topic: Vladimir Nabokov
Our friendship had begun 10 years earlier, when I interviewed him for a literary review. I was stunned, the first time he opened the door to his home at the Résidence Rossillon in Montreux, by the resemblance between father and son. This was the only time I ever saw Dmitri standing. Several months later, he could no longer leave his wheelchair, and though, with an optimism to match his father’s, he insisted he might walk again, he never did.
His Father's Best TranslatorNew York TimesDmitri Nabokov, the only child of the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, died in Switzerland in the first hours of Thursday, Feb. 23.
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