Anthea Bell (10 May 1936 – 18 October 2018) was an English translator of literary works, including children's literature, from French, German and Danish. These include '' The Castle'' by

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

, '' Austerlitz'' by

W. G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...

, the ''

Inkworld The ''Inkheart'' series is a succession of four fantasy novels written by German author Cornelia Funke, comprising ''Inkheart'' (2003), '' Inkspell'' (2005), '' Inkdeath'' (2007), and ''The Colour of Revenge'' (2023). The books chronicle the adv ...

'' trilogy by Cornelia Funke and the French ''

Asterix ''Asterix'' or ''The Adventures of Asterix'' (french: Astérix or , "Asterix the Gaul") is a ''bande dessinée'' comic book series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight the Roman Republic, wi ...

'' comics with co-translator Derek Hockridge.

Biography

Bell was born in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

on 10 May 1936. According to her own accounts, she picked up lateral thinking abilities essential in a translator from her father Adrian Bell, Suffolk author and the first '' Times''

cryptic crossword A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, includi ...

setter. Her mother, Marjorie Bell (née Gibson), was a home maker. The couple's son, Bell's brother,

Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...

, is a former BBC correspondent who was an independent Member of Parliament for one parliamentary term. After attending a boarding school in Bournemouth, she read English at Somerville College, Oxford. She was married to the publisher and writer

Antony Kamm Antony Kamm (2 March 1931–11 February 2011) was an English publisher, author, historian and cricketer. Biography Antony Kamm was born in Hampstead, London, the son of George Kamm, a founder director of Pan Books and his wife Josephine, a ...

from 1957 to 1973; the couple had two sons, Richard and Oliver.

Oliver Kamm Oliver Kamm (born 1963) is a British journalist and writer who is a leader writer and columnist for '' The Times''. Early life and career Kamm is the son of translator Anthea Bell and publisher Antony Kamm. Kamm is the grandson of Adrian Bel ...

is a leader writer for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

''. After her sons left home, she lived and worked in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. She died on 18 October 2018, aged 82.

Works

Anthea Bell's career as a translator began at the end of the 1950s when the German publisher Klaus Flugge asked Antony Kamm if he knew anyone able to translate ''Der kleine Wassermann'', a book for children by Otfried Preussler. Kamm recommended his wife; Bell's English version entitled ''The Little Water Sprite'' was published in 1960. Eventually, she translated Preussler's entire works. Over the decades, Bell translated numerous Franco-Belgian comics of the '' bande dessinée'' genre into English, including ''

'' – for which her new puns were praised for keeping the original French spirit intact.

Peter Hunt Peter Hunt may refer to: * Peter Hunt (British Army officer) (1916–1988), Chief of the General Staff of the British Army * Peter H. Hunt (1938–2020), American film, television and stage director *Peter R. Hunt (1925–2002), film editor on many ...

, now Professor Emeritus in Children's Literature at Cardiff University, has written of her "ingenious translations" of the French originals which "in a way display the art of the translator at its best". Other comic books she has translated include '' Le Petit Nicolas'', '' Lieutenant Blueberry'', and '' Iznogoud''. She specialised in translating children's literature, and re-translated Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales from Danish for the publishing house of G.P. Putnam's Sons. She also translated the

trilogy by Cornelia Funke and the Ruby Red Trilogy by Kerstin Gier. Other work includes ''The Princess and the Captain'' (2006), translated from ''La Princetta et le Capitaine'' by Anne-Laure Bondoux. Bell also translated into English many adult novels, as well as some books on

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

, and musicology. She has translated

W.G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...

's '' Austerlitz'' (plus other works by Sebald), and

Władysław Szpilman Władysław Szpilman (; 5 December 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Polish pianist and classical composer of Jewish descent. Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the 2002 Roman Polanski film '' The Pianist'', which was based on Szpilma ...

's memoir '' The Pianist'' (translated, at the author's request, from the German version). Her translations of works by

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig (; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular write ...

have been said to have helped restore his reputation among anglophone readers, and that of E.T.A. Hoffmann's '' The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr'' (originally ''Lebensansichten des Katers Murr'') has had a positive effect on Hoffman's profile as well. In addition, Penguin Classics published Bell's new translation of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

's ''

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life ''Psychopathology of Everyday Life'' (german: Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens) is a 1901 work by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Based on Freud's researches into slips and parapraxes from 1897 onwards, it became perhaps the ...

'' in 2003. Oxford University Press published her translation of Kafka's ''The Castle'' in 2009. She contributed an essay titled "Translation: Walking the Tightrope of Illusion" to a 2006 book, ''The Translator as Writer'', in which she explained her preference for 'invisible' translation whereby she creates the illusion that readers are not reading a translation "but the real thing". Bell was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the

2010 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2010 were announced on 31 December 2009 in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Barbados, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Christopher and NevisSaint Christ ...

for services to literature and literary translations. Bell received the German Federal Republic's Cross of Merit in 2015.

Illness and death

In a December 2017 newspaper column, Bell's son Oliver Kamm revealed his mother had entered a nursing home due to illness a year earlier, and "her great mind has now departed". As a result of her forced retirement, the 37th book in the ''

'' series, ''

Asterix and the Chariot Race ''Asterix and the Chariot Race'' (French: ''Astérix et la Transitalique'', "Asterix and the Trans-Italic") is the 37th book in the Asterix series, and the third to be written by Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrated by Didier Conrad. The book was re ...

'' (published in October 2017), was translated by Adriana Hunter. The end of the book has a message of thanks from the publishers to Bell for "her wonderful translation work on ''Asterix'' over the years". Bell died on 18 October 2018 at the age of 82.

Notable awards

* 1987 –

Schlegel-Tieck Prize The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation is a literary translation award given by the Society of Authors in London. Translations from the German original into English are considered for the prize. The value of the prize is £3,000.

for Hans Bemmann's ''The Stone and the Flute'' * 1996 –

Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation The Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation was a literary prize awarded in the United Kingdom from 1996 until 2017 to the translator of an outstanding work of fiction for young readers translated into English. The award was given e ...

– for Christine Nöstlinger's ''A Dog's Life'' translated from German * 2002 –

Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize The Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize is an annual literary prize named for the German–American publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff "honoring an outstanding literary translation from German into English" published in the USA the previous year ...

, Goethe Institute – for

's '' Austerlitz'' * 2002 – Independent Foreign Fiction Prize – for

's '' Austerlitz'' * 2002 –

for

's '' Austerlitz'' * 2003 –

– for

Karen Duve Karen Duve (born 16 November 1961 in Hamburg) is a German author. After secondary school, she worked as a proof-reader Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct reproduction error ...

's ''Rain'' translated from German * 2003 –

– for Hans Magnus Enzensberger's ''Where Were You Robert?'' translated from German * 2007 –

– for Kai Meyer's ''The Flowing Queen'' translated from German * 2009 – Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize – for

Saša Stanišić Saša Stanišić ( sr-cyr, Саша Станишић; born 7 March 1978) is a Bosnian-German writer. He was born in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the son of a Bosniak mother and a Serbian father. In the spring of 1992, he fled alongside hi ...

's ''How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone'' * 2009 –

for

's ''Burning Secret'' * 2017 –

Eric Carle Museum The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is a museum devoted to the art of the picture book and especially the children's book. It is a member of Museums10 and is adjacent to the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The Carle wa ...

Bridge Award for contributions to children's literature

Mildred L. Batchelder Award

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award is unusual in that it is given to a ''publisher'' yet it explicitly references a given work, its translator and its author. Its intent is to encourage the translation of children's works into English in order "''to eliminate barriers to understanding between people of different cultures, races, nations, and languages''." Anthea Bell, translating from German, French and Danish, has been mentioned for more works than any other individual or organisation (including publishers) in the history of the award:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Anthea 1936 births 2018 deaths Writers from Suffolk Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford British translators Danish–English translators Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature French–English translators German–English translators Literary translators Officers of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Translators of Sigmund Freud Winners of the Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation