Ralph Manheim
Encyclopedia
Ralph Frederick Manheim (4 April 1907, New York
– 26 September 1992, Cambridge
, England) was an American
translator of German
and French literature
, as well as occasional works from Dutch
, Polish
and Hungarian
. He likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author."
, spent time in Munich and Vienna (studying at the universities) before the rise to power of Adolf Hitler
. He also undertook post-graduate study at Yale
and Columbia
Universities. His career as a translator began with Hitler's
Mein Kampf
, commissioned by Houghton Mifflin
and published in 1943. Manheim endeavored to give an exact English equivalent of Hitler's highly individual, often awkward style, including his grammatical errors.
Manheim translated the works of Günter Grass
, Bertolt Brecht
(in collaboration with John Willett
), Louis-Ferdinand Céline
, Hermann Hesse
, Peter Handke
, Novalis
, philosopher Martin Heidegger
, and many others. His translation of Henry Corbin
's work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi could be considered a major contribution towards the understanding of Ibn Arabi
's and Sufi philosophy in the English speaking world.
In 1961, he rendered transcripts of the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann
into English, and Grimm's Tales For Young and Old - The Complete Stories, published in 1977. Modern readers are familiar with his 1986 translation of E.T.A. Hoffmann
's Nutcracker (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King), the story which inspired Tchaikovsky
's ballet
. It was published with illustrations by Maurice Sendak
, in conjunction with the release of the 1986 film Nutcracker: The Motion Picture
. Lovers of children's books also admire his agile translation of Michael Ende
's The Neverending Story
. He was awarded a 1983 MacArthur Fellowship in Literary Studies.
He moved to Paris
in 1950 and lived there until 1985 when he moved to Cambridge, England with his fourth wife, where he died from complications associated with prostate cancer.
The PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation
is a major lifetime achievement award in the field of translation, and past honorees include Gregory Rabassa
, Richard Howard
, William Weaver
, Richard Wilbur
, Robert Fagles
, Edmund Keeley
, and Donald Keene
.
Manheim's 1961 translation of Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum
) was elected on place four of outstanding translations of the last half century by the Translators Association of the Society of Authors
on the occasion of their 50th anniversary 2008.
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...
– 26 September 1992, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
translator of German
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
and French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, as well as occasional works from Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
and Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
. He likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author."
Biography
Manheim lived for a year in Germany and Austria as an adolescent, and after graduating at the age of nineteen from HarvardHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, spent time in Munich and Vienna (studying at the universities) before the rise to power of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. He also undertook post-graduate study at Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Universities. His career as a translator began with Hitler's
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
, commissioned by Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
and published in 1943. Manheim endeavored to give an exact English equivalent of Hitler's highly individual, often awkward style, including his grammatical errors.
Manheim translated the works of Günter Grass
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
, Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
(in collaboration with John Willett
John Willett
John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
), Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French writer and physician Louis-Ferdinand Destouches . Céline was chosen after his grandmother's first name. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and...
, Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
, Novalis
Novalis
Novalis was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg , an author and philosopher of early German Romanticism.-Biography:...
, philosopher Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
, and many others. His translation of Henry Corbin
Henry Corbin
Henry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work...
's work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi could be considered a major contribution towards the understanding of Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi
Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Moorish Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī .-Biography:...
's and Sufi philosophy in the English speaking world.
In 1961, he rendered transcripts of the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
into English, and Grimm's Tales For Young and Old - The Complete Stories, published in 1977. Modern readers are familiar with his 1986 translation of E.T.A. Hoffmann
E.T.A. Hoffmann
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
's Nutcracker (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King), the story which inspired Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
. It was published with illustrations by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
, in conjunction with the release of the 1986 film Nutcracker: The Motion Picture
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture , is a 1986 film produced by Pacific Northwest Ballet in associates with Hyperion Pictures and Kushner/Locke. It is a film adaptation of the ballet The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as well as based on the short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann...
. Lovers of children's books also admire his agile translation of Michael Ende
Michael Ende
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende was a German author of fantasy and children's literature. He is best known for his epic fantasy work The Neverending Story; other famous works include Momo and Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver...
's The Neverending Story
The Neverending Story
The Neverending Story is a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende, first published in 1979. The standard English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was first published in 1983...
. He was awarded a 1983 MacArthur Fellowship in Literary Studies.
He moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1950 and lived there until 1985 when he moved to Cambridge, England with his fourth wife, where he died from complications associated with prostate cancer.
The PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation
PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation
The PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, named in honor of U.S. translator Ralph Manheim, is a literary award given every three years by PEN American Center to a translator "whose career has demonstrated a commitment to excellence through the body of his or her work"...
is a major lifetime achievement award in the field of translation, and past honorees include Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa is a renowned literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese to English who currently teaches at Queens College.-Life and career:Rabassa was born in Yonkers, New York, U.S., into a family headed by a Cuban émigré...
, Richard Howard
Richard Howard
Richard Howard is an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied under Mark Van Doren, and where he now teaches...
, William Weaver
William Weaver
William Fense Weaver is an English language translator of modern Italian literature.-Biography:William Weaver is perhaps best known for his translations of the work of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino, and has translated many other Italian authors over the course of a career spanning more than fifty...
, Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....
, Robert Fagles
Robert Fagles
Robert Fagles was an American professor, poet, and academic, best known for his many translations of ancient Greek classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems of Homer...
, Edmund Keeley
Edmund Keeley
Edmund Leroy Keeley is an author, translator, and Charles Barnwell Straut Professor Emeritus of English at Princeton University. He is a prize-winning novelist and a noted expert on Greek poets C. P...
, and Donald Keene
Donald Keene
Donald Lawrence Keene is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years...
.
Manheim's 1961 translation of Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum
The Tin Drum
The Tin Drum is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass. The novel is the first book of Grass's .- Plot summary :The story revolves around the life of Oskar Matzerath, as narrated by himself when confined in a mental hospital during the years 1952-1954...
) was elected on place four of outstanding translations of the last half century by the Translators Association of the Society of Authors
Society of Authors
The Society of Authors is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights .It has counted amongst its members and presidents numerous notable writers and poets including Tennyson The Society of Authors (UK) is a...
on the occasion of their 50th anniversary 2008.