Michael Henry Heim (January 21, 1943 – September 29, 2012) was an American literary translator and scholar. He translated literature from eight languages (Russian, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, German, Dutch, French, Romanian, and Hungarian),[1] including works by
Anton Chekhov,
Milan Kundera, and
Günter Grass. He received his doctorate in Slavic languages and literature from
Harvard in 1971, and joined the faculty of
UCLA the following year.[2] In 2003, he and his wife used their life savings ($734,000) to establish the
PEN Translation Fund.[1][2]
Biography
Heim was born in Manhattan, New York City, on January 21, 1943. His father, Imre Heim, was Hungarian, born in
Budapest. He moved to the U.S. in 1939, where he was a music composer (under the pseudonym Imre Hajdu) and a master baker. In New York, Imre was working as a piano teacher when he was introduced to Blanche, Heim's mother, whom he married shortly thereafter. Shortly after
Pearl Harbor, Imre joined the U.S. Army. At the time of Heim's birth, Imre was stationed in Alabama.[3]: 10–14
Heim's father died when he was four, and he was raised by his mother and step-father in Staten Island. In 1966, he was drafted into the US Army during the
Vietnam War. When it was discovered that he was the sole surviving son of a soldier who had died in service, he was relieved from the draft.[4]
During the
Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968, Heim was in Prague employed as translator by
UNESCO. When the tanks rolled into Prague, he was in the unique position of being able to translate between Czech and Russian, thereby facilitating communications between the Soviet soldiers and the Czechoslovaks on the streets. With his knowledge of German, he was also able to assist a West German television crew in navigating the occupied city and interviewing ordinary Czech citizens, and to warn potential victims that Soviet agents were looking for them.[4]
He was married for thirty-seven years to his wife, Priscilla Smith Kerr, who brought three children of her own, Rebecca, Jocelyn and Michael, into the family from a previous marriage. He died on September 29, 2012, of complications from melanoma.[5][2][6]
Education
Heim graduated from
Curtis High School on Staten Island,[1] where he studied French and German.[5][7] He double-majored in Oriental Civilization and Russian Language and Literature, studying Chinese and Russian at
Columbia University as an undergraduate,[4] and worked with
Gregory Rabassa, an acclaimed translator.[8] As an American citizen, he had no chance of visiting China after his graduation, so he decided to concentrate on Russian at the postgraduate level. He received his Ph.D. in Slavic Languages from
Harvard University in 1971, under the mentorship of
Roman Jakobson.[5]
Career
Heim was one of the finest and most prolific translators of his age. He was also a faculty member of the
UCLA Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures for nearly 40 years, being promoted prior to his death to UCLA Distinguished Professor.
Every two years, Heim taught a workshop in literary translation at UCLA's Department of Comparative Literature,[8] which was highly regarded by his students.[5]
After Heim's death, it was revealed with his wife's permission that he was the secret donor behind the
PEN Translation Fund,[5] which was set up in 2003 with his gift of $730,000.[10]
Besides his celebrated translations, Heim was lauded for his research on 18th-century Russian writers and their philosophies of translation, at a time "when the process of literary creation occurred largely through the prism of translation."[5]
Heim, Michael Henry (1982). Contemporary Czech. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers.
ISBN0-89357-098-2.
Matich, Olga; Heim, Michael Henry, eds. (1984). The Third Wave: Russian Literature in Emigration. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis Publishers.
ISBN0-88233-782-3.
Aksyonov, Vasily (1987). In Search of Melancholy Baby. Translated by Michael Henry Heim and
Antonina W. Bouis. New York: Random House.
ISBN0-394-54364-5.
Chekhov, Anton (1973). Karlinsky, Simon (ed.). Letters of Anton Chekhov. New York: Harper & Row.
ISBN0-06-012263-3. (Republished by Northwestern University Press in 1997 as Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentaries.
ISBN0-8101-1460-7.)
Chekhov, Anton (2003). Chekhov: The Essential Plays. New York: Modern Library.
ISBN978-0-375-76134-8.
Chekhov, Anton (2010). Easter Week. Mainz, Germany: Shackman Press.
Konrád, George (1995). The Melancholy of Rebirth: Essays from Post-Communist Central Europe, 1989–1994. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.
ISBN0-15-600252-3.
Örkény, István (1982). The Flower Show & The Toth Family. Translated by Michael Henry Heim and Clara Gyorgyey. New York: New Directions.
ISBN0-8112-0836-2.