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are coming back into print all the time.
These numbers would only have embarrassed Mike, who
wouldn’t have found much real significance in them. And
impressive as it is, the bibliography is only one aspect of his
contribution to our literary culture. The PEN Translation
Fund has, to date, supported more than 100 translation
projects; Mike was also a hard-working supporter of many
other programs, including the American Council of Learned
Societies’ Social Science Translation Project and the National
Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships. In a tribute
written just after his death, Amy Stolls remembered how the
NEA “approached Michael time and again to be a judge on the
translation fellowships panel...to give us his opinion on certain
applications.... [W]e sought his wise council on all matters of
translation.”
What Mike worked for, what he wanted, what brought him
greatest pleasure and what he devoted his life to was pretty
simple and infinitely complex. It’s the moment when you read
something—whether or not it’s something Mike had anything
to do with, regardless of what language it was written in, what
language you’re reading it in—and find yourself enriched with
understanding, connection, recognition, meaning. He gave
everything he had to that possibility.
Esther Allen has translated a number of works from French and Spanish
and was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres by the
French government in 2006, in recognition of her work on behalf of
translation. She received two NEA Translation Fellowships in 1995 and
2011.
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National Endowment for the Arts