David McDuff (born 1945, Sale,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England) is a Scottish translator, editor and literary critic.

Life

McDuff attended the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, where he studied

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and German, gaining a PhD in 1971. He married mathematician

Dusa McDuff Dusa McDuff Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS Royal Society of Edinburgh, CorrFRSE (born 18 October 1945) is an English mathematician who works on symplectic geometry. She was the first recipient of the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics, w ...

, but they separated around 1975. After living for some time in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, Denmark,

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, and the United States, he eventually returned to the United Kingdom, where he worked for several years as a co-editor and reviewer on the

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...

''Stand''. He then moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where he began his career as a literary

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

. McDuff's translations include both

foreign Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

and

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

, including poems by

Joseph Brodsky Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (; russian: link=no, Иосиф Александрович Бродский ; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), USSR in 1940, ...

and

Tomas Venclova Tomas Venclova (born 11 September 1937) is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, following his dissident activities, ...

, and

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s including

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

's ''

Crime and Punishment ''Crime and Punishment'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Преступление и наказание, Prestupléniye i nakazániye, prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲɪje ɪ nəkɐˈzanʲɪje) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. ...

'', ''

The Brothers Karamazov ''The Brothers Karamazov'' (russian: Братья Карамазовы, ''Brat'ya Karamazovy'', ), also translated as ''The Karamazov Brothers'', is the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing '' ...

'', and ''The Idiot'' (all three in

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the Western ...

). His ''Complete Poems'' of

Edith Södergran Edith Irene Södergran (4 April 1892 – 24 June 1923) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet. One of the first modernists within Swedish-language literature, her influences came from French Symbolism, German expressionism, and Russian fu ...

(1984, 1992) and ''Complete Poems'' of

Karin Boye Karin Maria Boye (; 26 October 1900 – 24 April 1941) was a Swedish poet and novelist. In Sweden she is acclaimed as a poet, but internationally she is best known for the dystopian science fiction novel '' Kallocain'' (1940). Career Boye wa ...

(1994) were published b
Bloodaxe Books
McDuff’s translation of the Finnish-language author Tuomas Kyrö’s 2011 novel ''The Beggar and the Hare'' was published in 2014. Among literary awards, he has received the 1994 TLS/George Bernard Shaw Translation Prize for his translation of Gösta Ågren's poems,'' A Valley In The Midst of Violence'', published by Bloodaxe, and the 2006 Stora Pris of the Finland-Swedish Writers' Association
Finlands svenska författareförening
, Helsinki. From 2007 to 2010, David McDuff worked as an editor and translator wit
Prague Watchdog
the Prague-based NGO which monitored and discussed human rights abuses in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. McDuff was honoured with th
Finnish State Award for Foreign Translators
in 2013.David Mcduff Honoured With State Translators Prize

Yleisradio Yleisradio Oy (Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founde ...

News in English In November 2019 McDuff's new translation of

's dystopian novel

Kallocain ''Kallocain'' is a 1940 dystopian novel by Swedish novelist Karin Boye that envisions a future of drab terror. Seen through the eyes of the idealistic scientist Leo Kall, ''Kallocain'' is a depiction of a totalitarian world state. An important a ...

was published b
Penguin Classics
McDuff was honoured with the Swedish Academy'
Interpretation Prize (Tolkningspris) 2021
McDuff’s translation of ''Anteckningar'' by

Tua Forsström Tua Birgitta Forsström (born 2 April 1947) is a Finland-Swedish writer who writes in Swedish. She was awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1998 for the poetry collection '' Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar''. Forsström's ...

(''I walked on into the forest'', Bloodaxe, 2021) was The Poetry Book Society'
Translation Choice for Winter 2021

Works

*Osip Mandelʹshtam ''Selected poems'', Writers and Readers, 1983, *Edith Södergran ''Complete poems'', Bloodaxe Books, 1984, *Marina Tsvetaeva, ''Selected Poems'', Bloodaxe Books, 1987, *''Ice around our lips: Finland-Swedish poetry'', Bloodaxe Books, 1989, *Tua Forsström, ''Snow leopard'', Bloodaxe, 1990, * *Andrei Bely ''Petersburg'', Penguin. 1995. *Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, ''Rudin: On the eve'', Oxford University Press, 1999, *Fyodor Dostoyevsky (30 January 2003).
Crime and Punishment.
' Penguin Books Limited. * * *Tua Forsström, ''I studied once at a wonderful faculty'', Bloodaxe, 2006, *Karin Boye, ''Kallocain'', Penguin Classics, 2019, *Tua Forsström, I walked on into the forest, Bloodaxe, 2021,

References

External links

Database entry at Bloodaxe BooksPrague Watchdog's select bibliography of Chechnya-related works, compiled by David McDuff and others
{{DEFAULTSORT:McDuff, David 1945 births Living people Translators of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Swedish–English translators Russian–English translators Finnish–English translators People from Sale, Greater Manchester 20th-century British translators 21st-century British translators Reeves family