Edith Grossman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Edith Grossman
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Grossman in 2012
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| Born | Edith Marion Dorph March 22, 1936 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | September 4, 2023 (aged 87) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Translator |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse |
Norman Grossman
(m. 1965; div. 1984) |
| Children | 2 |
Edith Marion Grossman (born Dorph; March 22, 1936 – September 4, 2023) was an American literary translator. She was famous for translating books from Latin America and Spain into English. She translated works by famous authors like Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez, who both won the Nobel Prize. She also translated books by Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote. Edith Grossman received important awards for her translation work, including the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation.
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About Edith Grossman
Edith Marion Dorph was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later in her life, she lived in New York City. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University, where she earned her PhD. Early in her career, she taught at NYU and Columbia University.
Her journey as a translator began in 1972. A friend asked her to translate a short story by an Argentine writer named Macedonio Fernández. After this, Edith Grossman decided to focus her career on translation instead of just studying and writing about literature.
How She Translated
Edith Grossman had a special way of thinking about translation. She believed that being "faithful" to a text was the most important thing. However, she didn't think this meant translating word-for-word.
She explained that languages are very different. They have their own histories and cultures. Because of this, two languages can never perfectly match up. She said that translation is like taking a photograph. It connects two things, but it's not an exact copy. For her, being faithful meant capturing the tone, intention, and meaning of the original text. It was less about translating every single word exactly as it was written.
Her Life and Passing
Edith Grossman was married to Norman Grossman from 1965 to 1984. They had two sons together. She passed away on September 4, 2023, in her home in Manhattan. She was 87 years old.
Awards and Special Recognition
One of Edith Grossman's most famous translations was Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, published in 2003. Many authors and critics thought it was one of the best English translations of this classic Spanish novel. For example, the writer Carlos Fuentes and critic Harold Bloom praised her work. Bloom even called her "the Glenn Gould of translators," comparing her to a brilliant musician.
However, some experts who study Cervantes had different opinions. They felt her translation wasn't always as accurate as it could be.
Despite some criticisms, Edith Grossman received many important awards:
- In 2006, she received the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation.
- In 2008, she won the Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
- In 2010, she was given the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Translation Prize. This was for her translation of A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Muñoz Molina.
- In 2016, the King of Spain, Felipe VI, honored her with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Civil Merit.
- In 2022, she received the Thornton Wilder Prize for translation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A famous author, Gabriel García Márquez, once said that he preferred reading his own novels in English. He liked the translations done by Edith Grossman and Gregory Rabassa.
Edith Grossman also believed that translators should get more credit for their work. She thought their names should appear on the covers of the books they translated, right next to the author's name. She joked that without a translator's name, it seemed like "a magic wand" had changed the language of the book.
Books She Translated
Here are some of the important books Edith Grossman translated:
By Miguel de Cervantes
- Don Quixote, 2003.
- Exemplary Novels, 2016.
By Gabriel García Márquez
- Love in the Time of Cholera, 1988.
- The General in His Labyrinth, 1991.
- Strange Pilgrims, 1993.
- Of Love and Other Demons, 1995.
- News of a Kidnapping, 1997.
- Living to Tell the Tale, 2003.
By Mario Vargas Llosa
- Death in the Andes, 1996.
- The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, 1998.
- The Feast of the Goat, 2001.
- The Bad Girl, 2007.
- In Praise of Reading and Fiction: The Nobel Lecture, 2011.
- Dream of the Celt, 2012.
- The Discreet Hero, 2015.
- The Neighborhood, 2018.
By Ariel Dorfman
- Last Waltz in Santiago and Other Poems of Exile and Disappearance, 1988.
- In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land: New and Collected Poems from Two Languages, 2002.
By Mayra Montero
- In the Palm of Darkness, 1997.
- The Messenger: A Novel, 2000.
- The Last Night I Spent With You, 2000.
- The Red of His Shadow, 2001.
- Dancing to "Almendra": A Novel, 2007.
- Captain of the Sleepers: A Novel, 2007.
By Álvaro Mutis
- The Adventures of Maqroll: Four Novellas, 1995.
- The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, 2002.
Other Translated Works
- José Luis Llovio-Menéndez, Insider: My Hidden Life as a Revolutionary in Cuba, 1988.
- Augusto Monterroso, Complete Works & Other Stories, 1995.
- Julián Ríos, Loves That Bind, 1998.
- Eliseo Alberto, Caracol Beach: A Novel, 2001.
- Julián Ríos, Monstruary, 2001.
- Pablo Bachelet, Gustavo Cisneros: The Pioneer, 2004.
- Carmen Laforet, Nada: A Novel, 2007.
- The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance, 2007.
- Antonio Muñoz Molina, A Manuscript of Ashes, 2008.
- Luis de Góngora, The Solitudes, 2011.
- Carlos Rojas, The Ingenious Gentleman and Poet Federico Garcia Lorca Ascends to Hell, 2013.
- Carlos Rojas, The Valley of the Fallen, 2018.
Her Own Essay
- Why Translation Matters, 2010.
See also
In Spanish: Edith Grossman para niños
