translator question

[Valentino, Russell]

Thanks to everyone for the help with this.

Russell

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of R. M. Cleminson
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 2:30 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] translator question

D. Barton Johnson, "Sources of Nabokov's 'Despair'", pp.10-20 of "Nabokov at Cornell", ed. Gavriel Shapiro, suggests that Winifred Roy was in fact Winifred Ray, translator from French and German in the 1930s, and that she may have translated from the French version by Doussia Ergaz rather than directly from the Russian (see note 14 on p.15).  There is a very short page on her on the German Wikipedia which gives a reference to Olive Classe: Encyclopedia of literary translation into English, 2000.  Does this get us any further forward?


----- Pôvodná správa -----
Od: "Alina Israeli" <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
Komu: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Odoslané: piatok, 14. september 2012 21:15:23
Predmet: Re: [SEELANGS] translator question

True, but seems to be a real person and Nabokov disliked the translation: 


http://books.google.com/books?id=fif5PUvlu_cC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22Winifred+Roy%22&source=bl&ots=2lrk4mNW7D&sig=8Ot_zJG1z3T9gEtwxJQYxU5dkno&hl=en&sa=X&ei=to5TUOaAPLCy0QGm4YCgDg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Winifred%20Roy%22&f=false 


http://books.google.com/books?id=1qfhBbklYnIC&pg=PA446-IA7&lpg=PA446-IA7&dq=%22Winifred+Roy%22&source=bl&ots=dIWOwdgKQp&sig=-wjd8OdRs2IvV6q8yExzR8Ts5tI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BpBTUI6zMueV0QGDhYEw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=%22Winifred%20Roy%22&f=false 



On Sep 14, 2012, at 3:34 PM, Jules Levin wrote: 



On 9/14/2012 9:03 AM, Valentino, Russell wrote: 





“Do you have any information about a Nabokov translator named Winifred Roy? She translated Camera Obscura into English, it was published in 1936 by John Long in London. Nabokov is on the record saying that he despised her translation, and later he rewrote/retranslated it as "Laughter in the Dark" using a great deal of her prose but erasing her name entirely. Other than this there is very little known about her. Any info or names of good potential resources for this kind of research would be helpful.” 
Maybe she was invented by Nabokov to cover his first not very good translation into English... Sort of thing he would do. 
Jules Levin 






Alina Israeli 
Associate Professor of Russian 
LFS, American University 
4400 Massachusetts Ave. 
Washington DC 20016 
(202) 885-2387 fax (202) 885-1076 
aisrael at american.edu 




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