Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American

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 ''trans ...

of German and

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by French people, French citizens; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of Franc ...

, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th century, and likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author".Bruce Lamber
"Ralph Manheim, 85, Translator Of Major Works to English, Dies"
''New York Times'', September 28, 1992. Retrieved on March 25, 2009.

Early life

Manheim was born to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. His father was a rabbi and his mother a homemaker. He lived for a year in Germany and Austria as an adolescent and graduated from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

at the age of 19,John Calde
"Obituary: Ralph Manheim"
''The Independent'', September 28, 1992 and spent time in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

(studying at the universities) before

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

’s rise to power. He also undertook post-graduate study at

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

and Columbia Universities.

Career

His career as a translator began with Hitler's ''

Mein Kampf (; ) is a 1925 Autobiography, autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The book outlines many of Political views of Adolf Hitler, Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology and future plans for Nazi Germany, Ge ...

'', commissioned by

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

and published in 1943. Manheim endeavored to give an exact English equivalent of Hitler's highly individual, often awkward style, including his grammatical errors. Manheim translated the works of

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

(in collaboration with John Willett), Louis-Ferdinand Céline,

Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gda ...

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrians, Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has ...

, philosopher

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss poet and novelist, and the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His interest in Eastern philosophy, Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophic ...

Novalis Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (; ), was a German nobility, German aristocrat and polymath, who was a poet, novelist, philosopher and Mysticism, mystic. He is regarded as an inf ...

, and many others. His translation of Henry Corbin's work ''Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi'' could be considered a major contribution towards the understanding of

Ibn Arabi Ibn Arabi (July 1165–November 1240) was an Andalusian Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest com ...

's and

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

philosophy in the English-speaking world. In 1961, he rendered transcripts of the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann into English, and ''Grimm's Tales For Young and Old – The Complete Stories'', published in 1977. Modern readers are familiar with his 1986 translation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's " The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was published with illustrations by

Maurice Sendak Maurice Bernard Sendak (; June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. Born to Polish-Jewish parents, his childhood was impacted by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Send ...

, in conjunction with the release of the 1986 film '' Nutcracker: The Motion Picture''. Lovers of children's books also admire his agile translation of

Michael Ende Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende (12 November 1929 – 28 August 1995) was a German writer of fantasy and children's fiction. He is known for his epic fantasy '' The Neverending Story'' (with its 1980s film adaptation and a 1995 animated television ...

's '' The Neverending Story''.

Later life

In the 1940s, Manheim lived on Long Island and was a neighbor of

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

and Lee Krasner. Krasner has stated that all of the titles for the paintings in Pollock's groundbreaking first show at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1948 were provided by Manheim. He moved to Paris in 1950 and lived there until 1985, when he moved with his fourth wife to

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, England. He died in 1992, at age 85, from complications associated with

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is the neoplasm, uncontrolled growth of cells in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system below the bladder. Abnormal growth of the prostate tissue is usually detected through Screening (medicine), screening tests, ...

Selected translations

* ''Efraim's Book'' by

Alfred Andersch Alfred Hellmuth Andersch (; 4 February 1914 – 21 February 1980) was a German writer, publisher, and radio editor. The son of a conservative East Prussian army officer, he was born in Munich, Germany, and died in Berzona, Ticino, Switzerland. ...

* '' The Good Person of Szechwan'' by

* ''

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

'' by Bertolt Brecht * ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François V ...

'' by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill * ''The Guiltless'' by Hermann Broch * '' Journey to the End of the Night'' by Louis-Ferdinand Céline * '' Castle to Castle'' by Louis-Ferdinand Céline * '' Death on the Installment Plan'' by Louis-Ferdinand Céline * '' Une saison au Congo'' by

Aimé Césaire Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He ...

* ''Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi'' by Henry Corbin * '' The Neverending Story'' by

* '' The Freud/Jung Letters'' * '' The Life Before Us'' by Romain Gary * ''

The Tin Drum ''The Tin Drum'' (, ) is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass, the first book of his Danzig Trilogy. It was adapted into a 1979 film, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980. To "beat a ti ...

'' by

* '' Cat and Mouse'' by Günter Grass * '' The Rat'' by Günter Grass * '' Grimm's Tales for Young and Old - The Complete Stories'' * '' A Sorrow Beyond Dreams'' by

* '' The Left-Handed Woman'' by Peter Handke * '' Short Letter, Long Farewell'' by Peter Handke * '' Slow Homecoming'' by Peter Handke * '' Repetition'' by Peter Handke * '' Knulp'' by

* ''Crisis: Pages From a Diary'' by Hermann Hesse * ''Reflections'' by Hermann Hesse * ''

'' by

* '' The Nutcracker and the Mouse King'' by E. T. A. Hoffmann * ''The History of the Maghrib: an Interpretive Essay'' by Abdallah Laroui * '' Listen, Little Man!'' by

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( ; ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several in ...

* ''From Lenin to Stalin'' by

Victor Serge Victor Serge (; born Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich, ; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks in Janu ...

* ''Last Times'' by Victor Serge * ''Temptation'' by Jànos Székely

Awards and honors

Manheim received the PEN Translation Prize in 1964. He received the 1970

National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) 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. ...

in the Translation category for the first U.S. edition of Céline's '' Castle to Castle''."National Book Awards – 1970"

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...

. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
There was a "Translation" award from 1967 to 1983. He was awarded a 1983

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

in Literary Studies. He won the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, a major lifetime achievement award in the field of translation, in 1988. Manheim's 1961 translation of Günter Grass's ''Die Blechtrommel'' (''

'') was elected to fourth place among outstanding translations of the previous half century by the Translators Association of the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. Membership of the society is open to "anyon ...

on the occasion of their 50th anniversary in 2008.

Early life

Career

Later life

Selected translations

Awards and honors

References

See also