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Keith Anthony Bosley (16 September 1937 – 24 June 2018) was a British poet and translator.
Bosley was born in
Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
Bourne End is a village mostly in the civil parishes in England, parish of Wooburn and Bourne End, Wooburn, but partly in that of Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about five miles (8 km) south-east of High Wycombe and three ...
, and grew up in
Maidenhead
Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England, on the southwestern bank of the River Thames. It had an estimated population of 70,374 and forms part of the border with southern Bu ...
,
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
. He was educated at
Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
(Follow things worthy of thyself)
, established =
, type = Academy grammar school
, head = Kay Mountfield (since 2018)
, founder = Sir William Borlase
, specialist = Performing Arts College
, address = Wes ...
in
Marlow (1949 – 1956) and the Universities of
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
Caen
Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,[Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...]
(1956 – 1960), where he read French.
In 1961 he began working for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, mainly as an announcer and newsreader on the
World Service
The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
, but the work for which he perhaps best known is as a poet and translator. In 1978 he was awarded the Finnish State Prize for Translators. In 1980 he became a Corresponding Member of the
Finnish Literature Society
The Finnish Literature Society ( fi, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura ry or fi, SKS) was founded in 1831 to promote literature written in Finnish. Among its first publications was the ''Kalevala
The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th ...
, and a year later he undertook a Middle East lecture tour for the BBC and the
British Council
The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...
. Other accolades include first prizes in the British Comparative Literature Association's translation competition in 1982 and, in the same year, in the English Goethe Society's translation competition. In 1991 he was made a Knight, First Class, of the
Order of the White Rose
The Order of the White Rose of Finland ( fi, Suomen Valkoisen Ruusun ritarikunta; sv, Finlands Vita Ros’ orden) is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty, and the Order of the Lion of Finland. T ...
of
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.
Bosley retired from the BBC in 1993 and lived in
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
. In 2001 he was awarded a pension from the
Royal Literary Fund, and continued in his role as organist at
St Laurence's Church,
Upton-cum-Chalvey until 2015. He was married to
harpist
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual string (music), strings running at an angle to its sound board (music), soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various way ...
Satu Salo and had three sons – Ben (from an earlier marriage), Sebastian and Gabriel.
He died in a nursing home in Slough, Berkshire, after a short illness.
Publications
;Poetry
* ''The Possibility of Angels'' (1969)
* ''And I Dance: for children'' (1972)
* ''Dark Summer'' (1976)
* ''Stations'' (1979)
* ''A Chiltern Hundred'' (1987)
* ''An Upton Hymnal'' (1999)
* ''The Wedding-Guest: selected poems'' (ed. Owen Lowery and Anthony Rudolf) (2018)
;Translations
* ''Russia's Other Poets'' (1968)
* ''An Idiom of Night:
Pierre Jean Jouve
Pierre Jean Jouve (11 October 1887 – 8 January 1976) was a French writer, novelist and poet.Michael Sheringham, 'Jouve, Pierre-Jean', ''Oxford Companion to French Literature''Onlineat answers.com He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Litera ...
'' (1968)
* ''The War Wife: Vietnamese poetry'' (1972)
* ''The Song of Songs'' (1976)
* ''Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic'' (1977)
* ''
Mallarmé: The Poems'' (1977)
* ''A Round O: André Frénaud'' (1977)
* ''The Last Temptations: opera by
Joonas Kokkonen
Joonas Kokkonen (; 13 November 1921 – 2 October 1996) was a Finnish composer. He was one of the most internationally famous Finnish composers of the 20th century after Sibelius; his opera ''The Last Temptations'' has received over 500 performance ...
'' (1977)
* ''
Whitsongs:
Eino Leino
Eino Leino (born Armas Einar Leopold Lönnbohm; 6 July 1878 – 10 January 1926) was a Finnish poet and journalist who is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry and a national poet of Finland. His poems combine modern and Finnish fol ...
'' (1978)
* ''The Elek Book of Oriental Verse'' (1979)
* ''A Reading of Ashes:
Jerzy Ficowski'' (1981)
* ''From the Theorems of Master Jean de La Ceppède'' (1983)
* ''The
Kalevala
The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and r ...
'' (1989)
* ''
Luís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões (; sometimes rendered in English as Camoens or Camoëns, ; c. 1524 or 1525 – 10 June 1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespear ...
: Epic and Lyric'' (1990)
* ''The Kanteletar: selection'' (1992)
* ''The Great Bear: Finno-Ugrian oral poetry'' (1993)
* ''Odes:
Aleksis Kivi
Aleksis Kivi (; born Alexis Stenvall; 10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, ''Seitsemän veljestä'' ("Seven Brothers") in 1870. He is also known for his 1864 p ...
'' (1994)
* ''A Centenary
Pessoa'' (1995)
* ''Rome the Sorceress: André Frénaud'' (1995)
* ''Eve Blossom Has Wheels: German love poetry'' (1997)
* ''Skating on the Sea: poetry from Finland'' (1997)
;Audiobooks
* ''The
Kalevala
The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and r ...
'' (2013) – an audio recording of the 1989 translation
Bosley's other works include contributions to numerous journals in the UK, France, Finland and the US, and authorship of hundreds of radio scripts including ''The Poetry of Europe'' (nine 30-minute programmes, 1981) and ''The Kalevala'' (fifteen 15-minute programmes, 1992).
References
External links
Reviews of the ''Kalevala'', as translated by Keith Bosley– (published by
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
)
A blog piece by Keith Bosley about his translation of the ''Kalevala''*
ttp://finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=160079&contentlan=2&culture=en-US "The Kanteletar" thisisFINLAND.fi– Finland's treasury of folk lyrics and ballads
Rome the Sorceress– – by André Frénaud, as translated by Keith Bosley
*
Web page for ''The Wedding-Guest'' (2018)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosley, Keith
1937 births
2018 deaths
People from Wycombe District
People from Maidenhead
University of Paris alumni
University of Caen Normandy alumni
Alumni of the University of Reading
Radio and television announcers
English translators
English male poets
English male non-fiction writers
20th-century British translators
British expatriates in France