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| Richard Howard (translator) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Richard Howard |
| Birth date | 13 August 1929 |
| Birth place | Washington, D.C. |
| Death date | 18 December 2022 |
| Death place | New York City |
| Nationality | United States |
| Occupation | translator, Poet, Critic |
| Notable works | The Lover, Swann's Way translation (Marcel Proust excerpts) |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, National Book Award |
Richard Howard (translator) was an American translator, poet, essayist, and critic whose translations brought contemporary French literature and other European literatures to English-speaking readers. Renowned for his renderings of Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Jacques Prévert, he was also a recipient of major literary awards and taught at institutions such as Columbia University and the New School for Social Research.
Howard was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the United States. He studied at Columbia University where he engaged with the literary circles connected to figures like Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, and contemporary poets associated with the New Criticism. He later spent formative periods in Paris and other European cultural centers, interacting with authors from the French New Novel movement including Alain Robbe-Grillet and colleagues linked to Les Temps Modernes and the legacy of Jean-Paul Sartre.
Howard's career encompassed original poetry, critical essays, and prolific translation. He served as poetry editor for magazines connected to The Paris Review and taught at Columbia University, the City University of New York, and the New School for Social Research, placing him within networks alongside John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, and Elizabeth Bishop. His translation practice engaged with authors across the francophone and European traditions such as Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett, Marcel Proust, François Mauriac, and Georges Bataille, while also translating texts associated with movements like Surrealism and writers published by houses such as Gallimard and Éditions de Minuit.
Among Howard's notable translations were Marguerite Duras's The Lover, works by Alain Robbe-Grillet, selections from Marcel Proust, and translations of Jacques Prévert. His approach emphasized clarity, rhythmic fidelity, and the preservation of tonal nuance, connecting his practice to debates about translation advanced by figures like Walter Benjamin, George Steiner, and Paul Valéry. Howard translated dramatic texts and poetry from authors linked to Samuel Beckett's milieu and to writers associated with Existentialism and the Nouvelle Vague. Publishers such as Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Ecco Press issued many of his translations, which appeared alongside critical introductions referencing traditions traced to T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams.
Howard received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and other distinctions including awards administered by organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He won prizes that placed him among translators and poets honored by institutions like the National Book Foundation and literary societies associated with The Poetry Society of America and international cultural institutions such as the French Ministry of Culture for contributions to Franco-American literary exchange.
Howard lived much of his life in New York City and spent substantial time in Paris. He moved in social and professional circles that included Gertrude Stein's inheritors, modernist and postwar poets such as John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara, and critics associated with publications like The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. His friendships and correspondences connected him to translators, editors, and authors active in the transatlantic literary scene from the postwar period through the early twenty-first century.
Howard's translations significantly influenced the reception of French literature in the English-speaking world and shaped contemporary approaches to literary translation alongside scholars and practitioners such as Edith Grossman, Richard Wilbur, and Claudio Magris. His work informed debates about fidelity and readability referenced in discussions by academics at institutions like Harvard University, Yale University, and Oxford University. Collections of his papers and correspondence are of interest to archives and researchers studying connections among Columbia University's literary networks, the Parisian avant-garde, and the evolution of postwar American poetry.
Category:1929 births Category:2022 deaths Category:American translators Category:American poets