Marian Schwartz is an American translator of contemporary
Russian literature. She is the principal English translator of the author
Nina Berberova
Nina Nikolayevna Berberova (russian: Ни́на Никола́евна Бербе́рова) (St Petersburg, 26 July 1901 – Philadelphia, 26 September 1993) was a Russian writer who chronicled the lives of anti-communist Russian refugees in ...
and has translated over 70 books of fiction, history, biography, and criticism into English. She is the recipient of two translation fellowships from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
. Based in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, she is the former president of the
American Literary Translators Association The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is an organization in the United States dedicated to literary translation. ALTA promotes literary translation through its annual conference, which draws hundreds of translators and literary profes ...
.
Biography
Schwartz was born and raised in Ohio and began studying French as a child. She 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
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
at
Harvard as an undergraduate before completing a
Master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. in the Slavic Department at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
in 1975. During this time, she co-translated her first published translation, ''An Otherworldly Evening'' by
Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (russian: Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈtaɪvə; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russia ...
, with Russian professor
Richard D. Sylvester. After a year in Austin working on an unpublished translation, she moved to New York to work as an assistant editor for
Praeger Publishers
Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...
on a series of Soviet-focused publications. Another editor at Praeger put Schwartz in touch with a newly started publishing company looking for translators. The book, a translation of the seven-essay collection ''
Vekhi
Vekhi ( rus, Вехи, p=ˈvʲexʲɪ, t=Landmarks) is a collection of seven essays published in Russia in 1909. It was distributed in five editions and elicited over two hundred published rejoinders in two years. The volume reappraising the Russian ...
'', was published as ''Landmarks'' by Karz Howard in 1977.
While perusing the Slavonic Division of the
New York Public Library, Schwartz began identifying ignored and overlooked women writers that formed the basis for an anthology of 20th-century women writers, both within the Soviet Union as well as
émigré
An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate".
French Huguenots
Many French Huguenots fled France followin ...
e authors. This work became the foundation for her first fellowship from the NEA and the start of her career as a freelance translator.
Schwartz began publishing translations of Berberova's fiction, beginning with ''The Accompanist'', in 1987. She continued publishing translations of major Russian authors such as
Solomon Volkov
Solomon Moiseyevich Volkov (russian: Соломон Моисеевич Волков; born 17 April 1944) is a Russian journalist and musicologist. He is best known for ''Testimony'', which was published in 1979 following his emigration from the So ...
's ''Conversations with
Joseph Brodsky'',
Yury Olesha
Yury Karlovich Olesha (russian: Ю́рий Ка́рлович Оле́ша, – 10 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet novelist. He is considered one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th century, one of the few to have succeeded in wri ...
's ''Envy'',
Mikhail Bulgakov's ''
The White Guard
''The White Guard'' (russian: links=no, Белая гвардия) is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, first published in 1925 in literary journal ''Rossiya''. It was not reprinted in the Soviet Union until 1966.
Background
''The White Guard'' fir ...
'', and ''
Oblomov
''Oblomov'' ( ru , link=no, Обломов; ) is the second novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, first published in 1859. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is the central character of the novel, portrayed as the ultimate incarnation of the superfluous man, ...
'' by
Ivan Goncharov
Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (, also ; rus, Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Гончаро́в, r=Iván Aleksándrovich Goncharóv, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ ɡənʲtɕɪˈrof; – ) was a Russian novelist best known for his ...
. In 2013, her 2012 translation of
Mikhail Shishkin's ''Maidenhair'' (Russian: ''Венерин Волос)'' was shortlisted for the
Best Translated Book Award
The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...
.
Translation of Anna Karenina
In 2015, Schwartz published her translation of ''
Anna Karenina
''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, «Анна Каренина», p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever writt ...
'' (Yale University Press), shortly after
Rosamund Bartlett
Rosamund Bartlett is a British writer, scholar, lecturer, and translator specializing in Russian literature.
Bartlett graduated from Durham University with a first-class degree in Russian. She went on to complete a doctorate at Oxford.
Rosamun ...
's translation appeared from Oxford University Press. The two translations were often compared in the way they addressed
Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
's "rough" language, with Bartlett proposing that Tolstoy was "often a clumsy and occasionally ungrammatical writer, but there is a majesty and elegance to his prose which needs to be emulated in translation wherever possible". However Schwartz's point, as reviewer
Masha Gessen
Masha Gessen (born 13 January 1967) is a Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist who has been an outspoken critic of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump.
Gess ...
described, was that "Tolstoy's writing is indeed remarkable for its purposeful roughness, the use of repetition, and the obsessive breaking of clichés to force the reader to consider the meaning of each word and phrase".
In her introduction to the text, Schwartz notes: ''
English translators have tended to view Tolstoy's sometimes radical choices as 'mistakes' to be corrected, as if Tolstoy, had he known better, or cared more, would not have broken basic rules of literary language.
''
Selected bibliography
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Marian
Literary translators
Living people
Harvard University alumni
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century translators
Russian translators
21st-century translators
Year of birth missing (living people)