{"id":157,"date":"2016-06-22T21:14:33","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T21:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/PLD\/?p=157"},"modified":"2017-08-26T21:14:59","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T21:14:59","slug":"the-voice-of-a-generation-is-now-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/PLD\/2016\/06\/22\/the-voice-of-a-generation-is-now-silent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voice of a Generation is now Silent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rafa Lombardino<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week was a sad one for the literary community. The renowned translator Gregory Rabassa, the voice of a generation of Portuguese and Spanish authors introduced to English-speaking audiences, passed away at the age of 94.<\/p>\n

Rabassa was born in New York City in 1922 to a Cuban father and American mother. He served during World War II before starting his academic career as a professor at Columbia University, Queens College and City University of New York.<\/p>\n

Working with major Latin American authors from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Rabassa\u2019s translations introduced authors such as Julio Cort\u00e1zar (Argentina), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Jos\u00e9 Saramago (Portugal), and Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez (Colombia) to the English-speaking world. He also translated Clarice Lispector\u2019s \u201cThe Apple in the Dark<\/a>,\u201d Jorge Amado\u2019s \u201cCaptains of the Sands<\/a>,\u201d and Machado de Assis\u2019 \u201cPosthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas<\/a>\u201d and \u201cQuincas Borba<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was the recipient of the 1977\u00a0PEN Translation Prize<\/a>\u00a0for his translation of Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s \u201cThe Autumn of the Patriarch<\/a>,\u201d the inaugural\u00a0U.S. National Book Award in Translation<\/a>\u00a0in 1967 for his work on Cort\u00e1zar\u2019s \u201cHopscotch<\/a>,\u201d and the\u00a0PEN\/Ralph Manheim Medal<\/a>\u00a0for Translation in 1982, among other awards and distinctions.<\/p>\n

Legend says Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez waited three years for Rabassa to become available and translate \u201cOne Hundred Years of Solitude<\/a>,\u201d which went on to become one of the world\u2019s most well-known novels in translation. The author himself read the Rabassa version in English and deemed it even better than the original, calling his translator \u201cthe best Latin American writer in the English language.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Rabassa:<\/strong><\/p>\n