Fwd: PEN Translation Fund Anonymous Donor Revealed

[Anna Frajlich-Zajac]

One more obituary.

Begin forwarded message:
>
>
>
> PEN Mourns Loss of Distinguished
>
> Translator and Philanthropist
>
> Michael Henry Heim
>
> PEN American Center announced today that the recently deceased  
> Michael Henry Heim, 69, one of the world’s greatest translators  
> and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at U.C.L.A, was  
> the “anonymous donor” who created the PEN Translation Fund in  
> 2003, with a gift of $734,000. Over the past nine years, the Fund  
> has awarded over 100 grants to translators to help sustain new work  
> and thereby encourage the publication of more translated works.
>
> Peter Godwin, president of PEN American Center, said that “the  
> visionary generosity of Michael Heim, strongly supported by his  
> wife, Priscilla, has created a legacy that recognizes the unique  
> place of translators and translation in our literary life. He stood  
> for that because he knew so well how translation serves us all by  
> providing the key in our own language to all the world’s  
> literature.”
>
> PEN is deeply saddened by the loss of this luminary translator, PEN  
> member for the past thirty years, and (until now) the anonymous  
> benefactor of our single largest endowment. Mike died on September  
> 29 of brain cancer, which he had battled successfully for over two  
> years, remaining productive to the very end. A prodigious linguist  
> who admitted to working “actively” with ten languages, but whom  
> colleagues credit with having mastered sixteen, he brought to the  
> English-speaking world such authors as Milan Kundera, Günter Grass,  
> Danilo Kiš, Karel Čapek, Péter Esterházy, George Konrad, Jan  
> Neruda, Sasha Sokolov, and Bohumil Hrabal, in addition to new  
> translations of Bertolt Brecht, Anton Chekhov, and Thomas Mann. He  
> received the 2010 PEN Translation Prize for his translation from  
> the Dutch of Wonder by Hugo Claus (Archipelago, 2009). In awarding  
> him the 2009 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for his body of work, the PEN  
> Translation Committee praised Heim for bringing “clarity, beauty,  
> and honesty to his exceptional range of translations,” including  
> novels, poetry, theater, mathematical treatises, essays, and his  
> own extensive literary criticism. The Iowa Review credits him with  
> “shap[ing] the face of contemporary world literature in English.”
>
> Michael Henry Heim was also an activist who believed in the power  
> of translation to advance humanitarian goals. In 1999, he organized  
> a conference in Romania, funded by the Soros Foundation and  
> attended by representatives from former East-bloc nations to  
> promote the mutual translation of literature.  In fact, according  
> to current PEN Translation Committee Chair, Susan Bernofsky, “It  
> was Mike who received a call from the Czech government during its  
> divorce from the other half of Czechoslovakia wanting to know what  
> words to use in English to name its new country—the one we now  
> know as the Czech Republic.”
>
> As a professor at U.C.L.A., Mike was a dedicated mentor to  
> generations of students, many of whom he shepherded into the art of  
> literary translation in classes and workshops. Though he clearly  
> loved teaching, he described it as “that day job that pays for my  
> translation habit -- in this country ‘full-time literary  
> translator’ is still an oxymoron.”
>
> In 2003, to help translators pursue their art, Mike and his wife  
> Priscilla did something extraordinary. They created the PEN  
> Translation Fund to award competitive grants to translators each  
> year. Mike and Priscilla Heim endowed the Translation Fund  
> personally and anonymously with a gift of $734,000.  Esther Allen,  
> chair of the PEN Translation Committee when the Fund was created,  
> describes Mike as “enormously embarrassed at the thought of being  
> publicly associated with the donation, having as he did a visceral  
> horror of money, which he associated with excess and waste and all  
> of the things he most deplored.”
>
> The money donated for the Fund grew from a death benefit that his  
> mother received in 1945, when Mike’s father, a Hungarian composer  
> and pastry chef serving in the U.S. military, was killed. Mike and  
> Priscilla, through careful investment and the most frugal of  
> lifestyles, slowly built up the money with the dream of supporting  
> future generations of gifted translators and prodding publishers to  
> share their art with the world. As Priscilla, who gave permission  
> yesterday to reveal her husband as the Fund’s donor, explained,  
> “We never went to restaurants or movies, and Mike wore his clothes  
> for years on end, including his good blazer after moth holes  
> appeared. Those things add up, and added to the fund.” Since 2003,  
> the PEN Translation Fund has supported more than 100 translations,  
> a good many of which have now been published. In addition, it has  
> attracted generous support from Amazon.
>
> Jason Grunewald, a past PEN Translation Fund grant recipient for a  
> translation from the Hindi, provides this tribute: “Mike’s work  
> has inestimably enlarged and enhanced the worldwide conversation of  
> literature. The kindest of spirits, he has inspired so many, both  
> with his voice on the page and his smile in person, and he will  
> live on in many languages and countless souls.”
>
> Speaking for all who knew him, loved him, and had their lives  
> transformed by him, Esther Allen said, “Mike never sought any kind  
> of recognition in his lifetime—in fact he shunned it.  Now that  
> he’s gone, we have an opportunity finally to acknowledge him  
> fully.”
> Unsubscribe af38 at columbia.edu from this list. Update your information.
>
> PEN American Center | 588 Broadway, Suite 303 | New York, NY 10012  
> | (212) 334-1660


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