Authors
Cathy McAteer1; 1 University of Exeter, UK Discussion
Constance Garnett, the Matriarch of modern Russian literary translation into English, is credited with translating over seventy volumes of Russian literature and sustaining the so-called Russian Craze at the turn of the twentieth century. But by Garnett’s death in 1946, interest in Russian authors had waned, as if mirroring the downturn in Anglo-Russian political relations. During the Cold War, however, (inter)cultural curiosity reignited, creating transnational opportunities both for literature and for women translators. Penguin Books and Hamish Hamilton in the UK, Progress in Russia, and the New American Library (formerly Penguin USA) in the US each commissioned new translations of Russian Classics and Soviet literature, and British, emigrée Russian, and American women assumed key roles as literary translators. Some lesser-known female translators – like Moura Budberg, Vera Traill, Evelyn Manning, Margaret Wettlin – were commissioned for their cultural, linguistic, and literary capital. In return, literary translation provided employment, self-validation, and professional respectability. Drawing on archival and microhistorical research methodologies, my paper interrogates Garnett’s legacy and examines the literary landscape of her twentieth-century female successors. My research spotlights for the first time the collective microhistories of these quietly powerful women.
