Marian Schwartz » Yale University Press

Cosmopolitan Lawyer Picks Oblomov

mbs — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 15:20:36 +0000

Cosmopolitan Lawyer has chosen my translation of Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov as one of its fiction picks! S/he quotes one of the great lines from Mikhail Shishkin’s afterword: “Forced to choose between an unworthy life and sleeping, Oblomov chooses sleep. Suicide by sofa.”

White Guard Wins AATSEEL Prize

mbs — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:14:32 +0000

I’m thrilled to announce that my translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard has won the 2009 AATSEEL Award for Best Translation into English. The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), founded in 1941, “exists to advance the study and promote the teaching of Slavic and East European languages, literatures, and cultures on all educational levels, elementary through graduate school,” and the AATSEEL seal of approval ensures that this translation will be used in classrooms for many years to come.

Kudos to Yale University Press and its then senior editor Jonathan Brent for conceiving of the project and producing such a fine edition, with a serious and essential introductory essay by Professor Evgeny Dobrenko of the University of Sheffield in the UK.

Yale UP’s Modern Take on Oblomov

mbs — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:44:20 +0000

Here is Yale University Press’s sleek modern cover for its paperback edition of my translation of Oblomov, scheduled for publication in February 2010. Incredibly handsome, I think. I wonder whether Oblomov ever slept barefoot. Or under satin sheets, for that matter.

For more about the book, or to pre-order (you know you want to), click here.

White Guard, by Mikhail Bulgakov

mbs — Thu, 08 Oct 1931 12:47:46 +0000

White Guard
By Mikhail Bulgakov
Introduction by Evgeny Dobrenko
Translated by Marian Schwartz
Yale University Press, 2008; paperback ed. 2009

Winner, 2009 AATSEEL Award for Best Translation into English

White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical first novel, revolves around a Ukrainian family in their home city of Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin, adult siblings who have just lost their mother, find themselves plunged into the chaotic civil war that erupted in the wake of World War I and the Russian Revolution. In the context of this family’s saga, Bulgakov recreates not only the moment-to-moment experience of battles, but also the long pauses that come before and after. He confronts the reader with the cruelty and violence that overtakes people and events, yet holds up for contrast individual acts of heroism and humanity.

Review

In the course of their life in translation, the best novels shed their skin more than once. The time for Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard has been long overdue. Marian Schwartz’s excellent translation of Bulgakov’s early novel is both timely and elegant, preserving the shape, texture, and richness of the original text. . .

Schwartz sustains careful attention to detail throughout the whole of the translation project. She faithfully reproduces the bewildering kaleidoscope of detail that makes White Guard both difficult and intriguing, capturing the ornamental imagery, tone, pacing and phrasing of the original. Marian Schwartz’s new translation of White Guard treats Bulgakov’s work honorably and performs a great service to Bulgakov’s present and future readers. — Sidney Eric Dement, University of Kansas

For the full review, see Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 53, no. 4 (Winter 2009): 680-681.