Helen Lane
Encyclopedia
This article is about the translator. For the cancer patient and originator of the HeLa
cell line, see Henrietta Lacks
.
Helen Lane (1921 – August 29, 2004) was a renowned translator
of Spanish
, Portuguese
, French
and Italian language
literary works
into English
. She translated works by a number of noted authors among them are Augusto Roa Bastos
, Juan Goytisolo
, Juan Carlos Onetti
, Jorge Amado
, Luisa Valenzuela
, Mario Vargas Llosa
, Marguerite Duras
, Nélida Piñon
, and Curzio Malaparte
.
Lane began her career in the 1940s as a government translator in Los Angeles
, before moving to New York
to work for publishers there. She became a freelance translator in 1970, and moved to the Dordogne
in France
. In addition to her books, she also provided subtitles for films by Jean-Luc Godard
and Haskell Wexler
.
, where in 1953 she went on to gain a master's degree
. after that, she continued there in postgraduate work, as well as at the Sorbonne
.
HeLa
A HeLa cell is a cell type in an immortal cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a patient who eventually died of her cancer on October 4, 1951...
cell line, see Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who was the unwitting source of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research...
.
Helen Lane (1921 – August 29, 2004) was a renowned translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
literary works
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. She translated works by a number of noted authors among them are Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos, was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor...
, Juan Goytisolo
Juan Goytisolo
Juan Goytisolo is a Spanish poet, essayist, and novelist. He currently lives in a voluntary self-exile in Marrakech.-Background:Juan Goytisolo was born to an aristocratic family...
, Juan Carlos Onetti
Juan Carlos Onetti
Juan Carlos Onetti was an Uruguayan novelist and author of short stories.A high school drop-out, Onetti's first novel, El pozo, published in 1939, met with his close friends' immediate acclaim, as well as from some writers and journalists of his time...
, Jorge Amado
Jorge Amado
Jorge Leal Amado de Faria was a Brazilian writer of the Modernist school. He was the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and her Two Husbands in 1978...
, Luisa Valenzuela
Luisa Valenzuela
Luisa Valenzuela is a post-'Boom' novelist and short story writer. Her writing is characterized by an experimental, avant-garde style which questions hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. She is best known for her work written in response to the dictatorship of the 1970s in...
, Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
, Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...
, Nélida Piñon
Nélida Piñon
Nélida Piñon is a Brazilian writer born May 3, 1937 in Rio de Janeiro of Spanish immigrants. Her first novel was Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo , written in 1961, it concerns a protagonist discussing Christian doctrine with her guardian angel...
, and Curzio Malaparte
Curzio Malaparte
Curzio Malaparte , born Kurt Erich Suckert, was an Italian journalist, dramatist, short-story writer, novelist and diplomat...
.
Career
Lane began her career in the 1940s as a government translator in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, before moving to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to work for publishers there. She became a freelance translator in 1970, and moved to the Dordogne
Dordogne
Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. In addition to her books, she also provided subtitles for films by Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
and Haskell Wexler
Haskell Wexler
Haskell Wexler, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild.-Early life and education:Wexler was born to a Jewish...
.
Life
She was born Helen Ruth Overholt in Minneapolis and graduated summa cum laude in 1943 from the University of California, Los AngelesUniversity of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, where in 1953 she went on to gain a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
. after that, she continued there in postgraduate work, as well as at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
.
List of translations
- Of Heroes and Tombs
- The StorytellerThe StorytellerThe StoryTeller is a live-action/puppet television series. It was an American/British co-production which originally aired in 1988 and was created and produced by Jim Henson....
(Mario Vargas LlosaMario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
) - A Fish in the WaterA Fish in the WaterA Fish in the Water, originally published as El pez en el agua in 1993, is the memoir of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. It covers two main periods of his life: the first comprising the years between 1946 and 1958, describes his childhood and the beginning of his writing career in Europe...
(Mario Vargas LlosaMario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
) - Essays on Mexican Art
- Caetana's Sweet Song
- Massacre in Mexico (Elena PoniatowskaElena PoniatowskaElena Poniatowska is a Mexican journalist and author. Her generation of writers include Carlos Fuentes, José Emilio Pacheco and Carlos Monsiváis.-Life:Poniatowska was born in Paris to Prince Jean Joseph Evremont Sperry Poniatowski and Paula Amor Yturbe...
) - The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters
- State of SiegeState of SiegeState of Siege is a 1972 French film directed by Costa Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori.-Summary:...
- The Perón Novel
- Santa Evita
- The Memoirs of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (Servando Teresa de MierServando Teresa de MierFray Servando Teresa de Mier was a Roman Catholic priest and a preacher and politician in New Spain....
) - I, the SupremeI, the SupremeI, the Supreme is a historical novel written by exiled Paraguayan author Augusto Roa Bastos. It is a fictionalized account of the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who was also known as "Dr...
(Augusto Roa BastosAugusto Roa BastosAugusto Roa Bastos, was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor...
) - Les choses: a story of the sixtiesThings: A Story of the SixtiesThings is a novel by Georges Perec. It received the Prix Renaudot in 1965.It recounts the life of a young couple — both pollsters — in the 1960s...
(Georges PerecGeorges PerecGeorges Perec was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist and essayist. He is a member of the Oulipo group...
) - Aunt Julia and the ScriptwriterAunt Julia and the ScriptwriterAunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is the fifth novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was published by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain, in 1977. Set in Peru during the 1950s, it is the story of an 18 year old student who falls for a 32 year old divorcee...
(Mario Vargas LlosaMario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
) - The War of the End of the WorldThe War of the End of the WorldThe War of the End of the World is a 1981 novel written by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. It is a novelization of the War of Canudos conflict in late 19th-century Brazil.-Plot summary:...
(Mario Vargas LlosaMario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
)