Mark Harman (born 1951) is an Irish-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 ...

, most notably of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

's work, and professor emeritus at Elizabethtown College,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States, where he served as Professor of German & English and College Professor of International Studies.

Life

A native of

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, Harman studied at

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, where he took his BA/MA and PhD, respectively. He has taught German and Irish literature at Dartmouth, Oberlin, Franklin & Marshall, and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. He is editor and co-translator of ''Robert Walser Rediscovered: Stories, Fairy-Tale Plays, and Critical Responses'' (1985) and translator of ''Hermann Hesse, Soul of the Age'' (1991, edited by Theodore Ziolkowski). He is also a freelance translator for many newspapers and scholarly journals. Harman gained public recognition for his 1998 translation of Franz Kafka's ''The Castle'', for which he won the Lois Roth Award of the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "str ...

. As a translator, Harman wrote, "Translation is a complex issue, and retranslation doubly so," referencing the double challenge to confront both the text in the original and in other translations. Harman has characterized the current moment as a "great era for retranslation" to reexamine the versions through which generations of English-speakers have encountered important works from other tongues. A detailed discussion of his work with Kafka's unfinished novel may be found at The Castle, Critical Edition, Harman Translation. His translation of Kafka's ''Amerika: The Missing Person'', more widely known as ''Amerika'', was published in November 2008. The ''

New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

'' wrote that his translation of Rilke's ''

Letters to a Young Poet ''Letters to a Young Poet'' (original title, in German: ''Briefe an einen jungen Dichter'') is a collection of ten letters written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) to Franz Xaver Kappus (1883–1966), a 19-year- ...

'' was "likely to become the standard one".

References

External links

On the retranslation of ''The Castle''Missing Persons: Two Little Riddles About Kafka and Berlin
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Harman, Mark 1951 births Living people Alumni of University College Dublin Yale University alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty German–English translators 21st-century American translators Irish emigrants to the United States Translators of Franz Kafka Elizabethtown College faculty 20th-century Irish translators