Rae Dalven was a Romaniote

Romaniotes

The Romaniotes or Romaniots are a Jewish population who have lived in the territory of today's Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations for more than 2,000 years. Their languages were Yevanic, a Greek dialect, and Greek. They derived their name from the old name for the people...

 (Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

/Jewish

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

) author living in the United States of America since 1909. She is best known for her translations of Cavafy's works and for her books and plays about the Jews of Ioannina

Ioannina

Ioannina , often called Jannena within Greece, is the largest city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a population of 70,203 . It lies at an elevation of approximately 500 meters above sea level, on the western shore of lake Pamvotis . It is located within the Ioannina municipality, and is the...

.

She was a professor of Modern Greek literature at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 (NYU), where a prize is offered in her name by the A.S. Onassis Program in Hellenic Studies

Hellenic studies

Hellenic Studies is an interdisciplinary scholarly field that focuses on the study of Greek culture, ancient, Medieval and modern, including Hellenic diaspora communities around the world....

.

Obituary

The American Jewish Yearbook 1994 (p. 573) has the following obituary:
DALVEN, RAE, professor, translator; b. Preveza, Greece, Apr. 25, 1904; d. NYC, July 30, 1992; in U.S. since 1909. Educ: Hunter Coll., NYU (PhD). Prof., Eng. lit., and dept. chmn., Ladycliff Coll., Highland Falls, N.Y. Transl. of modern Greek poets and historian of the Jews in Greece, esp. the community of pre-Sephardic Romaniotes in Ioannina. Pres., Amer. Soc. of Sephardic Studies and ed. its journal, Sephardic Scholar; bd. mem., Amer. Friends of the Jewish Museum in Greece. Transl.: Modern Greek Poetry, Complete Poems of Cavafy, The Fourth Dimension (Yannis Ritsos), and others. Au.: The Jews of Ioannina (1990); A Season in @#!*% , a play about Rimbaud and Verlaine; and Our Kind of People, an autobiographical play.

Rae Dalven Prize

The Rae Dalven Prize is given for Outstanding Undergraduate Work In Byzantine Modern Greek Studies At New York University. The Program in Hellenic Studies requests submissions for the annual prize named in memory of the translator and critic Rae Dalven (1905-1992) to acknowledge excellence in modern Greek studies among undergraduate students at New York University.

The Rae Dalven Prize was awarded for the first time in 1997.

Recipients

• 2004-Georgia Giannoukouris
• 2003-Kaleroy Tzezailidis and Megan Manos
• 2002-Mariza Daras
• 2001-John Saragas, Essay: The Greek American Diaspora in the 20th Century
• 2000-Niki Kekos, Essay: "Intoxicated" by Death: The Civil War Poetry of Takis Sinopoulos
• 1999-Evelina Zarkh, Essay: Shadows in the Mirror: Transcendent Vision and the Presence of the Past in Ritsos' "The Dead House" and "Under the Shadow of the Mountain."
• 1998-Artemis Loi, Essay: Language and ideology in Karapanou's Kassandra and the Wolf
• 1997-Areti Serkizis, Essay: Classical allusion in Seferis' Mythistorema