List of translators
Encyclopedia
This is primarily a list of notable Western translators
. Large sublists have been split off to separate articles.
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...
. Large sublists have been split off to separate articles.
By text
- List of Bible translators
- List of translations of the Qur'an
- Harry Potter in translationHarry Potter in translationThe Harry Potter series of fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling have become some of the most widely-read works of children's literature in history, with readers of all ages and in many countries. In April 2011 worldwide sales of Harry Potter books were estimated to be about 450 million copies, and the...
Into Azerbaijani (Azeri)
- Hamlet Isaxanli (Isayev) - translator of poems from Russian, English and French
Into French
- Étienne AignanÉtienne AignanÉtienne Aignan was a French translator, political writer, librettist and playwright born in Beaugency, Loiret.In 1814 he was made a member of the Académie française, replacing Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in Seat 27....
- Jacques AmyotJacques AmyotJacques Amyot , French Renaissance writer and translator, was born of poor parents, at Melun.He found his way to the University of Paris, where he supported himself by serving some of the richer students. He was nineteen when he became M.A. at Paris, and later he graduated doctor of civil law at...
produced a famous version of PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's Parallel Lives, later rendered into English by Sir Thomas North - Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
produced a famous and immensely influential translation of the works of Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective... - Yves BonnefoyYves BonnefoyYves Bonnefoy is a French poet and essayist. Bonnefoy was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, the son of a railroad worker and a teacher....
, noted contemporary translator, particularly of English poetry. - Marie De CotteblancheMarie De CotteblancheMarie De Cotteblanche was a French noblewoman known for her skill in languages and translation of works from Spanish to French....
(c1520 - c1584) , a French noble woman known for her skill in languages and translation of works from Spanish to French. - Chateaubriand translated MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's epic poem Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
into French prose - Anne Dacier – translated classical Greek works
- Antoine GallandAntoine GallandAntoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of The Thousand and One Nights...
- translated the first European edition of the Arabian Nights - Jean HyppoliteJean HyppoliteJean Hyppolite was a French philosopher known for championing the work of Hegel, and other German philosophers, and educating some of France's most prominent post-war thinkers....
- translated Hegel and popularized his work - Leconte de LisleCharles-Marie-René Leconte de LisleCharles Marie René Leconte de Lisle was a French poet of the Parnassian movement.-Life:Leconte de Lisle was born on the island of Réunion. His father, an army surgeon, who brought him up with great severity, sent him to travel in the East Indies with a view to preparing him for a commercial life...
– translated classical Greek authors - J. C. MardrusJ. C. MardrusJoseph Charles Mardrus, otherwise known as "Jean-Charles Mardrus" , born in Cairo, was a French physician and a noted translator. Jean-Charles's surname was originally Mardirossian, but the family shortened it to Mardrus. His family had some Armenian origins, and his relatives were so wealthy that...
- a translator of the Arabian Nights
- Geneviève Maury - translated Thomas Mann from the German
Into German
- Joachim Honnef - translator of popular fiction
- Henny KochHenny KochHenny Koch was a translator and a German children's author. She was born in Alsfeld, Grand Duchy of Hesse. From 1898 on, she lived in Jugenheim an der Bergstraße in Hessia, Germany, where she died in 1925. She produced the first German translation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...
- produced the first translation of Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
's Adventures of Huckleberry FinnAdventures of Huckleberry FinnAdventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...
in 1890 - Franz KuhnFranz KuhnFranz W. Kuhn was a lawyer and a translator chiefly remembered for translating many Chinese novels into German, most famously the Dream of the Red Chamber.- Biography :...
- translator of many Chinese works including Dream of the Red ChamberDream of the Red ChamberDream of the Red Chamber , composed by Cao Xueqin, is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was composed in the middle of the 18th century during the Qing Dynasty. It is considered to be a masterpiece of Chinese vernacular literature and is generally acknowledged to be a pinnacle of...
into German - SchlegelAugust Wilhelm von SchlegelAugust Wilhelm Schlegel was a German poet, translator, critic, and a foremost leader of German Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare made the English dramatist's works into German classics.-Life and work:Schlegel was born at Hanover, where his father, Johann Adolf Schlegel, was a Lutheran...
and TieckLudwig TieckJohann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
produced the most famous German translation of Shakespeare - Ingo Sundmacher - translator of literature, radio plays, theatre end film from Danish, English, Norwegian and Swedish into German
- Johann Heinrich Voss - translated classical poetry into German
Into Hebrew
- Abraham bar Hiyya Ha-NasiAbraham bar Hiyya Ha-Nasi' was a Jewish mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, also known as Savasorda or Abraham Judaeus...
- translated scientific works from Arabic into Hebrew (for further translation into Latin by Plato of Tivoli) - Yehuda AlhariziYehuda AlhariziYehuda Alharizi, also Judah ben Solomon Harizi or al-Harizi was a rabbi, translator, poet and traveller active in Spain in the Middle Ages . He was supported by wealthy patrons, to whom he wrote poems and dedicated compositions.He was a rationalist, conveying the works of Maimonides and his...
- translated Maimonides' Guide for the PerplexedGuide for the PerplexedThe Guide for the Perplexed is one of the major works of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or "the Rambam"...
and Arabic maqamaMaqamaMaqāma are an Arabic literary genre of rhymed prose with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical extravagance is conspicuous. The 10th century author Badī' al-Zaman al-Hamadhāni is said to have invented the form, which was extended by al-Hariri of Basra in the next century...
poetry - T. CarmiT. Carmi-Biography:He was born Carmi Charny in New York City. Hebrew was his mother tongue and his family used it as the spoken language of their home. He moved to Israel just before the outbreak of the Israeli War of Independence...
- Shakespeare - Ibn TibbonIbn TibbonIbn Tibbon , is a family of Jewish rabbis and translators that lived principally in Provence in the 12th and 13th centuries.- Prominent family members :Prominent members of the family include:...
family - translated Greek, Roman, Arab, and Jewish works from Arabic - Emperor D. Pedro IIPedro II of BrazilDom Pedro II , nicknamed "the Magnanimous", was the second and last ruler of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for over 58 years. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he was the seventh child of Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil and Empress Dona Maria Leopoldina and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of...
- translated poetry by Luís de CamõesLuís de CamõesLuís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...
from PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese 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... - Abraham RegelsonAbraham RegelsonAbraham Regelson was a Hebrew poet, author, children's author, translator, and editor.-Biography:Abraham Regelson was born in Hlusk, now Belarus, in the Russian Empire in 1896, and died at his home in Neveh Monossohn, Israel in 1981...
- translated literature from English and Yiddish - Yitzhak SalkinsohnYitzhak SalkinsohnIsaac Edward Salkinsohn , , was a Jew who converted to Christianity, and lived during the Jewish Enlightenment. He was famous as a translator into Hebrew...
- relatively early (19th century) translator of Milton and Shakespeare - Abraham Shlonsky - translated Shakespeare, Gogol, and others
- Adin SteinsaltzAdin SteinsaltzRabbi Adin Steinsaltz or Adin Even Yisrael is a teacher, philosopher, social critic, and spiritual mentor, who has been hailed by Time magazine as a "once-in-a-millennium scholar". He has devoted his life to making the Talmud accessible to all Jews...
- dozens of volumes of TalmudTalmudThe Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
from AramaicAramaic languageAramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,... - Shaul TchernichovskyShaul TchernichovskyShaul Tchernichovsky , was a Russian-born Hebrew poet. He is considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.- Life :...
- prolific literary translator
Into Hindi
- Reetu Kansal - translator of German and English texts into Hindi for a number of literary and professional organisations
Into Interlingua
- Pian Boalt - translates Italian belles-lettres into Interlingua
- Alexander GodeAlexander GodeAlexander Gottfried Friedrich Gode-von Aesch or simply Alexander Gode was a German-American linguist, translator and the driving force behind the creation of the auxiliary language Interlingua.-Biography:Born to a German father and a Swiss mother, Gode studied at the University of Vienna and the...
- translated scientific and medical literature into InterlinguaInterlinguaInterlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
Into Italian
- Italo CalvinoItalo CalvinoItalo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
- translated Raymond Queneau's Les fleurs bleues (The Blue Flowers) - Ettore Capriolo - translated McLuhan, Camus, Rushdie
- Masolino D'Amico - translated Hemingway and other authors from English
- Eduardo De FilippoEduardo De FilippoEduardo De Filippo was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria.-Biography:...
- translated Shakepeare's The Tempest into 18th century Neapolitan - Carlo Linati - translated Joyce, Lawrence, Yeats, Synge, Dickens and Henry James
- Vincenzo Mantovani - translated works by William Faulkner, Henry Miller, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Saul Bellow, Malcolm Lowry, Charles Bukowski, Isaac Asimov, Richard Ford, William Gaddis, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Jerzy Kosinski and others
- Maria Napolitano Martone - translated works by Ernest Hemingway, Erskine Caldwell, Archibald Joseph Cronin, James M. Cain, W. Somerset Maugham, John Fante, William Hudson, P.G. Wodehouse, Daphne du Maurier
- Grazyna MillerGrazyna MillerGrażyna Miller was a poet, born in Poland.She lived in Italy, where she wrote poems and translates publications from Polish into Italian. She was also a literary critic whose work was published by the most prestigious Italian press media...
- translated Pope John Paul II's Roman Triptych: Meditations from Polish into Italian - Cesare PaveseCesare PaveseCesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator; he is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.- Early life and education :...
- translated Melville, Dickens and others - Fernanda PivanoFernanda PivanoFernanda Pivano was an Italian writer, journalist, translator and critic.Born in Genoa, as a teenager she moved with her family to Turin where she attended the Massimo D'Azeglio Lyceum. In 1941 she received a bachelor's degree with a thesis on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, which earned her a prize...
- translated works by Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Lee Masters, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso and many other English-language authors - Elio VittoriniElio VittoriniElio Vittorini was an Italian writer and novelist. He was a contemporary of Cesare Pavese and an influential voice in the modernist school of novel writing. His best-known work is the anti-fascist novel Conversations in Sicily, for which he was jailed when it was published in 1941. The first U.S...
- translated works by Ernest Hemingway, William Saroyan, John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, D.H. Lawrence and Edgar Allan Poe
Into Japanese
- Matsudaira Chiaki - translator of Homer, Xenophon
- Watanabe Kazuo - translator of French
- Ogai MoriMori Ogaiwas a Japanese physician, translator, novelist and poet. is considered his major work.- Early life :Mori was born as Mori Rintarō in Tsuwano, Iwami province . His family were hereditary physicians to the daimyō of the Tsuwano Domain...
- translator of Goethe and Andersen (from the German) - Shunji Shimizu - translator of movie dialogs and Raymond Chandler
- Haruki MurakamiHaruki Murakamiis a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...
- translator of Raymond Chandler - Maruya SaiichiMaruya Saiichiis a Japanese author and literary critic.-Biography:Maruya was mobilized into the Japanese Army in 1945 when still a high-school student. After the war's end, he completed his high school studies in Niigata, then in 1947 entered the University of Tokyo to major in English literature. There he...
- translator of Joyce - Odajima Seisi - translator of Shakespeare
Into Korean
- Chansoon Park - translator of movie dialogs
- Eunjeong Rho - translator of current English works into Korean
- Yeonhyang Lee - translator and professor at Monterey Inst. of Foreign Studies
- Hyangseon Lee - translator of movie dialogs
- Kiman Hong - translator of movie dialogs, from English or Japanese into Korean and, vice versa
Into Latin
- Herman of CarinthiaHerman of CarinthiaHerman Dalmatin or Herman of Carinthia , also known in Latin as Sclavus Dalmata, Secundus, was a philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, translator and author....
translated ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
scientific texts into LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. - St. Jerome produced the Latin VulgateVulgateThe Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
version of the Bible; is regarded among ChristiansChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
as the patron saintPatron saintA patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
of translators. - Robert of KettonRobert of KettonRobert of Ketton was an English medieval theologian, astronomer and Arabist.Ketton, where Robert was either born or perhaps first took holy orders, is a small village in Rutland, a few miles from Stamford.Robert is believed to have been educated at the Cathedral School of Paris...
and Herman of CarinthiaHerman of CarinthiaHerman Dalmatin or Herman of Carinthia , also known in Latin as Sclavus Dalmata, Secundus, was a philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, translator and author....
rendered the Qur'an into Latin (1142-1143).
Into Polish
- Tadeusz Boy-ŻeleńskiTadeusz Boy-ZelenskiTadeusz Kamil Marcjan Żeleński was a Polish stage writer, poet, critic above all, and translator of over 100 French literary classics into Polish...
– prolific translator of French classic literature; murdered by the Nazis. - Stanisław CzerskiStanisław CzerskiStanislaw Czerski was a Jesuit priest, graphic artist, translator, and man of culture....
- translator of the fables of Phaedrus - Feliks Konopka – translator of Goethe's FaustGoethe's FaustJohann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
. - Ignacy KrasickiIgnacy KrasickiIgnacy Krasicki , from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno , was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet , a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and...
– translated PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
and OssianOssianOssian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...
. - Bolesław Leśmian – poet who translated the tales of Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. - Jerzy S. Sito – translator of English-language poetryPoetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
. - Maciej Słomczyński – translator of James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's UlyssesUlysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
and of the complete works of ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. - Robert StillerRobert StillerRobert Reuven Stiller is a Polish polyglot, writer, poet, translator and editor.-Life :Stiller was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Polish parents and spent his early childhood in what is now Belarus...
– prolific translator of classic and contemporary literatureContemporary literatureContemporary literature is literature with its setting generally after World War II. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance.-History:This table lists literary movements by decade. It should not be assumed to be comprehensive....
, from a score of languages, European as well as Oriental. - Władysław Syrokomla – superb translator of Latin, French, German, Russian and Ukrainian poets, including works by Béranger, Goethe, HeineHeineHeine is a German family name. The name comes from "Heinrich" or the Hebrew "Chayyim" . When mentioned without a first name it usually refers ti the poet Heinrich Heine...
, Lermontov, NekrasovNekrasovNekrasov, also Nekrassov , or Nekrasova , is a Russian last name and may refer to:-People:*Aleksandr Nekrasov , Russian mathematician and academician...
and ShevchenkoShevchenkoShevchenko , a family name of Ukrainian origin. It is derived from the Ukrainian word shvets’, "shoemaker" and/or "tailor", and the suffix -enko, denoting descent...
. - Julian TuwimJulian TuwimJulian Tuwim , sometimes used pseudonym "Oldlen" when writing song lyrics. He was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, of Jewish parents, and educated in Łódź and Warsaw where he studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University...
– translator of Alexander Pushkin and other Russian poets. - Adam WażykAdam WazykAdam Ważyk born Ajzyk Wagman was a Polish poet, essayist and writer born to a Jewish family in Warsaw. In his early career, he was associated with the Kraków avant-garde led by Tadeusz Peiper who published Zwrotnica monthly. Ważyk wrote several collections of poetry in the interwar years...
– translator of Alexander Pushkin's Eugene OneginEugene OneginEugene Onegin is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin.It is a classic of Russian literature, and its eponymous protagonist has served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes . It was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832...
. - Bronisław Zieliński – translator of classic and contemporary English-language literature.
Into Portuguese
- Machado de Assis
- Carlos do Amaral FreireCarlos do Amaral FreireCarlos Amaral Freire is a Brazilian scholar, linguist and translator. He have mastered more than 30 languages in the sense that he has some theoretical and practical knowledge that makes it possible for him to communicate in them, but he can make translations, read, and write in others...
- Daniel GaleraDaniel GaleraDaniel Galera is a Brazilian writer, translator, editor and musician. He was born in São Paulo, but was raised and spent most of his life in Porto Alegre, until 2005 when he went back to São Paulo. He is considered by the critics to be one of the most influent new authors in Brazilian literature...
- Décio PignatariDécio PignatariDécio Pignatari is a Brazilian poet, essayist and translator.Since the 1950s, conducting experiments with poetic language, incorporating visuals elements and the fragmentation of words...
- translator of Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe and McLuhan - Ana Saldanha - translator of Mandela, Kipling
- Abraham UsqueAbraham UsqueAbraham ben Salomon Usque was a 16th century publisher. Usque was born in Portugal to a Jewish family and fled the Portuguese Inquisition for Ferrara, Italy, around 1543....
Into Russian
- Aleksey MikhalyovAleksey Mikhaylovich MikhalyovAleksey Mikhaylovich Mikhalyov was a Russian translator and lately a well-known home video voice-over translator from English. Among numerous films and cartoons, translated by him into Russian, are The Jungle Book, The Witches of Eastwick, Apocalypse Now, Pretty Woman and The Silence of the Lambs...
- translated John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
's East of Eden and many other authors, as well as numerous films and cartoons - Ivan Bunin - translated The Song of HiawathaThe Song of HiawathaThe Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem, in trochaic tetrameter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, featuring an Indian hero and loosely based on legends and ethnography of the Ojibwe and other Native American peoples contained in Algic Researches and additional writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft...
- Alexander DruzhininAlexander DruzhininAlexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin , , was a Russian writer, translator, and magazine editor.-Biography:...
- translated several of Shakespeare's plays and the poetry of George CrabbeGeorge CrabbeGeorge Crabbe was an English poet and naturalist.-Biography:He was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of a tax collector, and developed his love of poetry as a child. In 1768, he was apprenticed to a local doctor, who taught him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge... - Nikolay GnedichNikolay GnedichNikolay Ivanovich Gnedich was a Russian poet and translator best known for his idyll The Fishers...
- made the classical translation of The Iliad - Mikhail LozinskyMikhail LozinskyMikhail Leonidovich Lozinsky is deemed to be the most accomplished Russian translator of the 20th century...
- made the classical translation of The Divine ComedyThe Divine ComedyThe Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature... - Samuil MarshakSamuil MarshakSamuil Yakovlevich Marshak was a Russian and Soviet writer, translator and children's poet. Among his Russian translations are William Shakespeare's sonnets, poems by William Blake and Robert Burns, and Rudyard Kipling's stories. Maxim Gorky proclaimed Marshak to be "the founder of [Russia's ]...
- translated Shakespeare's sonnets, among his other works - Vladimir NabokovVladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
- translated Alice in Wonderland and LolitaLolitaLolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian... - Boris PasternakBoris PasternakBoris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
- translated FaustFaustFaust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
and HamletHamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601... - Vasily ZhukovskyVasily ZhukovskyVasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century...
- some of his translations proved more lasting than their originals - Viktor GolyshevViktor GolyshevViktor Golyshev is a well-known English-to-Russian translator. His translations include Light in August, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, All the King's Men, Theophilus North, 1984, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Set This House on Fire, Pulp, and others...
- translated Light in AugustLight in AugustLight in August is a 1932 novel by the American author William Faulkner.Light in August is an exploration of racial conflict in the society of the Southern United States. Originally Faulkner planned to call the novel Dark House, which also became the working title for Absalom, Absalom!...
, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon asylum, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional process and the human mind, as well as a critique of Behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. Written in 1959, the novel was adapted into a...
, All the King's MenAll the King's MenAll the King's Men is a novel by Robert Penn Warren first published in 1946. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. In 1947 Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men....
, Theophilus North, 1984Nineteen Eighty-FourNineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
, Other Voices, Other RoomsOther Voices, Other Rooms (novel)Other Voices, Other Rooms is a novel written by Truman Capote published in January 1948. Other Voices, Other Rooms is written in the Southern Gothic style and is notable for its atmosphere of isolation and decadence....
, Set This House on FireSet This House on FireSet This House on Fire is a novel by William Styron, set in Italy centred on the themes of evil and redemption. The narrator, Leverett, is a lawyer from the South, but the story is primarily told through the recollections of its protagonist, a troubled artist named Cass.-Plot introduction:The...
, PulpPulp (novel)Pulp is the last completed novel by Los Angeles poet and writer Charles Bukowski. It was published in 1994, shortly before Bukowski's death. He began writing it in 1991 and encountered several problems during its creation...
and other books. He mostly worked on American literature.
Into Spanish
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
- translated many English, French, and German works into Spanish - Javier MaríasJavier MaríasJavier Marías is a Spanish novelist. He is also a translator and columnist.-Life:Javier Marías was born in Madrid. His father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing Franco...
- translated many English works into Spanish
Into Swahili
- Fortunatus Kawegere - translator of Animal FarmAnimal FarmAnimal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II...
by George OrwellGeorge OrwellEric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist... - Julius NyerereJulius NyerereJulius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
, first president of TanzaniaTanzaniaThe United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, translated Shakespeare into SwahiliSwahili languageSwahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
Self-translators
(Authors who translated their own work into other languages)- Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
- William BeckfordWilliam BeckfordWilliam Beckford may refer to:* William Beckford , English businessman, often called "Alderman Beckford", father of William Thomas* William Beckford of Somerley , Jamaican slave-owner and writer...
- Karen BlixenKaren BlixenBaroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke , , née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Osceola and Pierre Andrézel...
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
- Vladimir NabokovVladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
- Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...