Samvel Suren Mkrtchyan (''

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

: Սամվել Մկրտչյան'') (25 February 1959 – 7 December 2014) was an Armenian translator, editor and writer.

Early life

Mkrtchyan was born in Talin in the

Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic,; russian: Армянская Советская Социалистическая Республика, translit=Armyanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika) also commonly referred to as Soviet A ...

. He graduated from

Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences ( hy, Երևանի Բրյուսովի անվան պետական լեզվահասարակագիտական համալսարան), is a public university in Yerevan the capital of Arm ...

Career

From the early 1990s, Mkrtchyan became a foremost translator of British and American literature into Armenian. His list of translations started with a collection including William Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, and A Lover’s Complaint (1991), followed by The Rape of Lucrece (2004) and new editions of the Sonnets in 2004 and 2013, the latter also including the Bard’s long and short poems. T. S. Eliot’s

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of Modernist poetry in English, modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the ...

(1991) was followed by Poems (2004) and Four Quartets (2013). Mkrtchyan also translated

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

’s

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creature ...

and

Through the Looking Glass ''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'' (also known as ''Alice Through the Looking-Glass'' or simply ''Through the Looking-Glass'') is a novel published on 27 December 1871 (though indicated as 1872) by Lewis Carroll and the ...

(1994),

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much o ...

’s

Just So Stories for Little Children ''Just So Stories for Little Children'' is a 1902 collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Considered a classic of children's literature, the book is among Kipling's best known works. Kipling began working on th ...

(1995),

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most ...

’s The Bear (1992) and

Absalom, Absalom! ''Absalom, Absalom!'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it is a story about three families of the American South, with a focus on the life o ...

(2001), Herman Melville’s stories (2001), and an anthology of American and British poetry (2004). He did not leave aside the lyrics of contemporary names like

Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...

( Songs of Love and Hate, 2012) and

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

(The Genius of the Crowd and Other Poems, 2013), and translations from Armenian authors like

William Saroyan William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''Th ...

(1992), William Michaelian (Ancient Language, 2005), and

Garin Hovannisian Garin K. Hovannisian (Armenian: Կարին Հովհաննիսյան; born 1986) is an Armenian American writer, filmmaker, and producer. He is the director of the award-winning films ''1915'' (2015), '' I Am Not Alone'' (2019), and ''Truth to Pow ...

(Family of Shadows, 2009). He compiled a collection of his translations in a two-volume edition of 2009. Mkrtchyan also produced several volumes of translations from Armenian into English. These included two selections of poetry from Armenia (1991, 2004) and an anthology of

Yeghishe Charents Yeghishe Charents (; March 13, 1897 – November 27, 1937) was an Armenian poet, writer and public activist. Charents' literary subject matter ranged from his experiences in the First World War, socialist revolution, and frequently Armenia a ...

՛ poems (2012), as well as essays by Ruben Angalatyan (1995) and poetry by Shushig Dasnabedian (1999) and Vahe Armen (2000). He published many opinion pieces, poems, and short stories. From 2002 to 2014 He was the founding editor-in-chief of the quarterly translation magazine "Foreign Literature". He was a member of the Writers' Union of Armenia since 1995. He was a laureate of "Kantegh" award.

Death

Mkrtchyan died in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and ...

in 2014.

Personal life

He was married to the politician Naira Zohrabyan.

References

External links