Gregory Rabassa,

ComM The command in the Unix family of computer operating systems is a utility that is used to compare two files for common and distinct lines. is specified in the POSIX standard. It has been widely available on Unix-like operating systems s ...

(March 9, 1922 – June 13, 2016), was an American

literary Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to includ ...

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

from Spanish and Portuguese to English. He taught for many years 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

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

Life and career

Rabassa was born in

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as en ...

, to a family headed by a

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

n émigré. After serving during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as an

OSS OSS or Oss may refer to: Places * Oss, a city and municipality in the Netherlands * Osh Airport, IATA code OSS People with the name * Oss (surname), a surname Arts and entertainment * ''O.S.S.'' (film), a 1946 World War II spy film about ...

cryptographer, he received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth. He earned his doctorate at

and taught there for over two decades before accepting a position at

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

. Rabassa translated literature from Spanish and Portuguese. He produced

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the i ...

versions of the works of several major Latin American novelists, including

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ...

Jorge Amado Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in ...

and

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one ...

. On the advice of Cortázar, García Márquez waited three years for Rabassa to schedule translating '' One Hundred Years of Solitude''. He later declared Rabassa's translation to be superior to the Spanish original. He received the

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been p ...

in 1977 and the

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 America (the U.S. chapter of International PEN) to a translator "whose career has demonstrated a commit ...

in 1982. Rabassa was honored with the

Gregory Kolovakos Award Awards presented by the PEN American Center (today PEN America) that are no longer active. The awards are among many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN in over 145 PEN centres around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been ...

from

PEN American Center PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of liter ...

for the expansion of Hispanic Literature to an English-language audience in 2001. Rabassa had a particularly close and productive working relation with Cortázar, with whom he shared lifelong passions for jazz and wordplay. For his version of Cortázar's novel, ''

Hopscotch Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a ch ...

'', Rabassa shared the inaugural U.S.

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

Translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

. There was a "Translation" award from 1967 to 1983. Rabassa taught at

, from which he retired with the title Distinguished Professor Emeritus. In 2006, he was awarded the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons ...

. He wrote a memoir of his experiences as a translator, ''If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents, A Memoir'', which was a ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' "Favorite Book of the Year" for 2005 and for which he received the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir in 2006.

Translation methods

Rabassa sometimes translated without having read the book beforehand. In a 2006 interview with the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...

, Rabassa said "I just let the text lead me along. In my mind, the book I’m translating exists in English even before it’s translated. I just have to pull it out. I do a first draft, “write” the book as the author him- or herself would have written it if they’d spoken English. Ideally, a different style emerges for each author being translated".

Death

Rabassa died on June 13, 2016, at a hospice in

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, about east of downtown New Haven. The population was 28,273 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a to ...

. He was 94.

Selected translations

* Demetrio Aguilera Malta ** ''Seven Serpents and Seven Moons'', 1979 (''Siete lunas y siete serpientes'') *

Juan Benet Juan Benet (7 October 1927 – 5 January 1993) was a Spanish novelist, dramatist and essayist who also worked as a civil engineer. Early life Benet was born in Madrid. At the start of the Spanish Civil War, his father was killed, and he left fo ...

** ''Return to Region'' ** ''A Meditation'' * Jorge Franco ** ''Rosario Tijeras'', 2004 *

** ''

'' 1966 (''Rayuela'') —U.S. National Book Award for Translation ** '' A Manual for Manuel'', 1978 (''Libro de Manuel'') ** '' 62: A Model Kit'' (''62: Modelo para armar'') *

José Maria de Eça de Queirós José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacu ...

**''

Saint Christopher Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius (reigned 249–251) or alternatively ...

'' *

**'' One Hundred Years of Solitude'' 1970 (''Cien años de soledad'') **'' The Autumn of the Patriarch'' 1976 (''El otoño del patriarca''), for which he received the

Pen Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been p ...

. **''

Chronicle of a Death Foretold ''Chronicle of a Death Foretold'' ( es, Crónica de una muerte anunciada) is a novella by Gabriel García Márquez, published in 1981. It tells, in the form of a pseudo- journalistic reconstruction, the story of the murder of Santiago Nasar by ...

'' 1982 (''Crónica de una muerte anunciada'') **''

Leaf Storm ''Leaf Storm'' is the common translation for Gabriel García Márquez's novella ''La Hojarasca''. First published in 1955, it took seven years to find a publisher. Widely celebrated as the first appearance of Macondo, the fictitious village later m ...

'' (''La hojarasca'') *

Clarice Lispector Clarice Lispector (born Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector ( uk, Хая Пінкасівна Ліспектор); December 10, 1920December 9, 1977) was a Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short story writer. Her innovative, idiosyncratic works ex ...

**'' The Apple in the Dark'' 1967 (''A maçã no escuro'', 1961) *

Luis Rafael Sánchez Dr. Luis Rafael Sánchez, a.k.a. "Wico" Sánchez (November 17, 1936) is a Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, and short-story author who is widely considered one of the island's most outstanding contemporary playwrights. Possibly his best known play ...

**''

Macho Camacho's Beat Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1930s and 1940s best defined as hav ...

'' 1983 (''La guaracha del Macho Camacho'') * José Lezama Lima **'' Paradiso'' (''Paradiso'') *

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

**''

Conversation in the Cathedral ''Conversation in The Cathedral'' (original title: ''Conversación en La catedral'') is a 1969 novel by Spanish-Peruvian writer and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Gregory Rabassa. One of Vargas Llosa's major works, it is a portrayal of ...

'' (''Conversación en la Catedral'') *

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short stor ...

**'' Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas'' (''Memórias Póstumas de Bras Cubas'') **''

Quincas Borba Quincas may refer to: * Quincas Borba, a novel written in 1891 by the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis * Joaquim Albino (1931), generally known as ''Quincas'', Brazilian footballer (Canto do Rio, Fluminense, Palmeiras) {{disambig ...

'' (''Quincas Borba'') *

António Lobo Antunes António Lobo Antunes, GCSE (; born 1 September 1942) is a Portuguese novelist and retired medical doctor. He has been named as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has been awarded the 2000 Austrian State Prize, the 2003 Ovid P ...

**'' Fado Alexandrino'' (''Fado Alexandrino'') **'' The Return of the Caravels'' (''As Naus'') * Osman Lins **'' Avalovara'' (''Avalovara'') *

**''

Captains of the Sands ''Captains of the Sands'' ( pt, Capitães da Areia) is a Brazilian novel written by Jorge Amado in 1937. The novel tells of a gang of one hundred street children. Their ages range from seven to sixteen and they live by begging, gambling, stealin ...

'' (''Capitães da Areia'') *

Ana Teresa Torres Ana Teresa Torres (born 6 July 1945) is a Venezuelan novelist, essayist and short story writer. Her writing, both fiction and non-fiction, is often concerned with Venezuelan history and politics, memory, gender, and psychoanalysis. Life Torre ...

**''Dona Ines vs. Oblivion'' (''Doña Inés contra el olvido'')

Honours

Commander of the

Order of Merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

(12 November 2011)

References

External links

PEN audio interview with Gregory Rabassa, Edith Grossman and Michael F. Moore
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabassa, Gregory 1922 births 2016 deaths Columbia University faculty Dartmouth College alumni Columbia University alumni People of the Office of Strategic Services National Book Award winners United States National Medal of Arts recipients 20th-century American translators 21st-century American translators American people of Cuban descent People from Yonkers, New York Literary translators Portuguese–English translators Spanish–English translators Translators of Julio Cortázar Translators of Clarice Lispector Translators of Mario Vargas Llosa American military personnel of World War II