Michael Scammell (born 1935) is an English author, biographer and translator of
Slavic literature.
Education
Michael Scammell was born in
Lyndhurst, Hampshire
Lyndhurst is a large village and civil parish situated in the New Forest National Park in Hampshire, England. Serving as the administrative capital of the New Forest, it is a popular tourist attraction, with many independent shops, art gallerie ...
, England, attended Brockenhurst Grammar School, and after two years working as a copy boy for the ''Southern Daily Echo'' in
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
, was drafted into the British army, spending most of his time at the Joint Services School for Linguists in Cambridge and Bodmin, where he was trained as a Russian interpreter. In 1958 he earned a B.A. degree with first class honors in Slavic Studies from the
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...
, and edited the prize-winning student newspaper, ''The Gongster''. Having spent a year teaching English at the
University of Ljubljana
The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students.
History Beginnings
Although certain ...
in the former
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, he attended graduate school at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and later obtained his doctorate in Slavic Studies.
Career
Translations
While in graduate school, Scammell taught Russian Literature at
Hunter College
Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
and began translating books from Russian. His first translation was a novel, ''Cities and Years'', by the Soviet author,
Konstantin Fedin
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin ( rus, Константи́н Алекса́ндрович Фе́дин, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈfʲedʲɪn, a=Konstantin Alyeksandrovich Fyedin.ru.vorb.oga; – 15 July 1977) was a So ...
. Having been introduced to
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
, he translated two of Nabokov's Russian novels into English, ''The Gift'' and ''The Defense,'' followed by a translation of ''Crime and Punishment'' by
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 ...
.
After moving back to England in 1965, Scammell translated ''Childhood, Boyhood and Youth'' by
Lev 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 ...
and a detective novel, ''Petrovka 38'', by the Soviet author,
Yulian Semyonov
Yulian Semyonovich Semyonov (russian: link=no, Юлиа́н Семёнович Семёнов, ), pen-name of Yulian Semyonovich Lyandres (russian: link=no, Ля́ндрес) (October 8, 1931 – September 15, 1993), was a Soviet and Russian writ ...
. Two years later he joined the External Services division of the BBC as a Language Supervisor for East European Languages, and after becoming interested in the plight of Russian dissidents, translated a memoir about the post-Stalin gulag, ''My Testimony'', by a former prisoner,
Anatoly Marchenko
Anatoly Tikhonovich Marchenko (russian: Анато́лий Ти́хонович Ма́рченко, 23 January 1938 – 8 December 1986) was a Soviet dissident, author, and human rights campaigner, who became one of the first two recipients (al ...
. Together with the Slovenian poet,
Veno Taufer, whom he met at the BBC, he also translated a selection of modern Slovenian poetry for a special issue of ''
Modern Poetry in Translation
''Modern Poetry in Translation'' is a literary magazine and publisher based in the United Kingdom. The magazine was started by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort in 1965. It was relaunched by King's College London in 1992. The College published it ...
''. Many years later, he and Taufer translated a selection of poems by Slovenia's premier modern poet,
Edvard Kocbek
Edvard Kocbek () (27 September 1904 – 3 November 1981) was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, member of Christian Socialists in the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation and Slovene Partisans. He is considered one of the best au ...
, under the title, “Nothing Is Lost.”
Index on Censorship
![Svět knihy 2011 - Index on Censorship](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Sv%C4%9Bt_knihy_2011_-_Index_on_Censorship.jpg)
In 1971, Scammell became the first director of the nonprofit Writers and Scholars International (later the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust) in London, and started the quarterly magazine, ''
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is an organization campaigning for freedom of expression, which produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association w ...
'', devoted to documenting censorship worldwide and promoting freedom of expression. In 1976 he was asked to revive the
International PEN Club
PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internation ...
's moribund Writers in Prison Committee and remained Chair for the next ten years.
For the next few years, he edited and partly translated an anthology of censored writing, ''Russia's Other Writers''; edited an illustrated catalog, "Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union" to accompany an exhibition of paintings and sculpture he helped to organize under the same name; translated ''To Build a Castle'' by
Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (russian: link=no, Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950 ...
; edited and supervised the translation of a set of cultural and political essays selected by
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...
, ''From Under the Rubble''; vetted the American translation of the first two volumes of ''The Gulag Archipelago'' by Solzhenitsyn; and arranged for the translation and publication of Solzhenitsyn's pamphlet, ''Letter to the Soviet Leaders'', written shortly before the latter's expulsion from the Soviet Union.
Biographies
![Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1974crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn_1974crop.jpg)
After meeting Solzhenitsyn in Zurich and Frankfurt, Scammell undertook to write Solzhenitsyn's biography (with the author's consent and cooperation, but without his authorization) and resigned from ''Index on Censorship'' to work on it full-time. Between 1981 and 1983 he lived in New York, chaired a seminar on censorship at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
, ran an exchange program with Eastern Europe funded by
George Soros
George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...
, and attended weekly meetings of the
New York Institute for the Humanities The New York Institute for the Humanities (NYIH) is an academic organization founded by Richard Sennett in 1976 to promote the exchange of ideas between academics, writers, and the general public. The NYIH regularly holds seminars open to the publ ...
. Returning to England, he completed and published ''Solzhenitsyn, A Biography'' (1984).
![Arthur Koestler (1969)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Arthur_Koestler_%281969%29.jpg)
Scammell was commissioned to write the authorized biography of
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...
, which after fifteen years of research and writing was published in the United States in 2009 as ''Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth Century Skeptic,'' and in the UK in 2010 as ''Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual.'' The book won the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for the best biography of 2009 in the United States and the Spears Magazine Award for best biography of 2010 in the UK. It was also shortlisted for the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography. The New York Times Book Review listed it as one of the “100 Best Books of 2010.”
In 2016, Scammell reported the discovery by German doctoral candidate Matthias Weßel of the original German version of Koestler's ''
Darkness at Noon
''Darkness at Noon'' (german: link=no, Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by Hungarian-born novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried f ...
''. A Swiss university had archived it under the title "Koestler, Arthur. Rubaschow: Roman. Typoskript, März 1940, 326 pages." He deemed the discovery important because "''Darkness at Noon'' is that rare specimen, a book known to the world only in translation." In 2018, he reported that Elsinor Verlag (publisher of the 1946 German translation) had published the German original, as ''Sonnenfinsternis'' (''Solar Eclipse'') in May 2018, with an introduction by Scammell and an afterword by Weßel. He also reported a new English translation to appear in 2019, with a different introduction and appendices. In August 2019, Scammell mentioned the new German original in the ''New York Times'' but made no reference to the forthcoming English translation or its publication date.
Academics
In 1985, Scammell returned to the United States to settle there permanently. From 1986–1994 he was a Professor of Russian Literature at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
, and in 1994 moved to Columbia University to become Professor of Writing (Nonfiction) and Translation.
He retired from Columbia at the end of 2011.
He is a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, a vice president of International PEN.
He has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Program, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Ford Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the Jerusalem Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Historical Research Foundation.
Personal life
Scammell is married to Rosemary Nossiff, a professor of Political Science at Marymount Manhattan College and previously a professor at Rutgers University.
He was previously married to Erika Roettges, with whom he has four children, Catherine, Stephen, Lesley and Ingrid.
Works
Scammell has written for the ''Times Literary Supplement,'' ''The Observer,'' and ''The Guardian'' in the UK and has contributed articles and criticism to the ''New York Review of Books'', ''The New York Times Book Review'', ''The Los Angeles Times Book Review'', ''Harper's'', ''The New Republic'', ''AGNI'', and several other journals in the US.
His works in book form follow (listed by order of publication year).
Biographies
*
*
* The two books titled ''Koestler'' are the American and British editions of the same boo
Edited books
*
Library of Congress
*
*
Library of Congress
*
*
*
*
Library of Congress
Translations
*
*
*
*
*
*
* (Vintage Books, 1991 )
*
*
Library of Congress
*
Library of Congress
Awards
* Solzhenitsyn:
** Los Angeles Times Award for Biography (1985)
** Silver PEN award of the English PEN Centre for Nonfiction (1985)
* Koestler:
** PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for the best biography (2009)
** Spears Magazine Award for best biography (2010)
References
External links
*
*
*
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Scammell, January 10, 2010Wilson QuarterlyInterview (2011)
Days of YoreInterview (2011)
PENInterview (2012)
Washington Timesreview of Koestler – 20 December 2009
also here
* Images:
2009an
1991
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scammell, Michael
1935 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Nottingham
Columbia University alumni
English translators
English biographers
Translators to English
Translators from Russian
Translators of Fyodor Dostoyevsky
People from Lyndhurst, Hampshire
University of Ljubljana faculty
20th-century biographers