Edouard Roditi

Édouard Roditi (Paris, 6 June 1910 – Cadiz, Spain, 10 May 1992^[1]) was an American poet, short-story writer and translator.^[2] He was educated in England at Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford,^[3] and at the University of Chicago.^[4]

His father was a Sephardic Jewish native of Istanbul, but American citizen.^[5] Édouard Roditi studied in France, England, Germany and the USA.

Roditi published several volumes of poetry, short stories, and art criticism. He was also well regarded as a translator, and translated into English original works from French, German, Spanish, Danish and Turkish. He was for instance one of the first translators of Saint-John Perse in English in 1944.

In 1961, he translated Yaşar Kemal's epic novel İnce Memed (1955) under the English title Memed, My Hawk. This book was instrumental in introducing the famed Turkish writer to the English-speaking world. Memed, My Hawk is still in print.

In addition to his poetry and translations, Roditi is perhaps best remembered for the numerous interviews he conducted with modernist artists, including Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Oskar Kokoschka, Philippe Derome and Hannah Höch. Several of these have been assembled in the collection Dialogues on Art.

References

• Edouard Roditi, "Éloges and other poems, Saint-John Perse", Contemporary Poetry, Baltimore, vol. IV, no. 3, Autumn 1944

1. "Finding Aid for the Edouard Roditi Papers, 1910–1992". Online Archive of California / University of California. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
2. Rosie Ayliffe, Marc Dubin, John Gawthrop. Rough Guide to Turkey (2003), p. 1061, "Edouard Roditi was born of Turkish Sephardic Jewish parents, but left Istanbul relatively early in life. Though for many years dividing his time between Paris and California, he still retained an obvious affection for his roots;..."
3. Roditi, Édouard (1944), "Trick Perspectives", Virginia Quarterly Review (University of Virginia), Autumn 1944: 541–554, Thus I came first to Elstree school, from which I graduated in time to Charterhouse and thence to Balliol College, Oxford.
4. "Finding Aid for the Edouard Roditi Papers, 1910–1992". Online Archive of California / University of California. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
5. George Monteiro. The Presence of Pessoa: English, American, and Southern African ... (1998), p. 28, "Credit Edouard Roditi with having introduced Fernando Pessoa to readers in the United States. ... In a conversation with Edmund White, published in 1985, he recalled: My father was an American citizen, though born as a Sephardic Jew in Roditi was born in Paris"

External links

• Article in the GLBTQ encyclopedia
• Saint-John Perse
• Guide to the Papers of Edouard Roditi (1910-1992) at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.