Édouard Roditi
Édouard Roditi was an American poet, short-story writer and translator. He was educated in England at Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford, and at the University of Chicago.
His father was a Sephardic Jewish native of Istanbul, but American citizen. Édouard Roditi studied in France, England, Germany and the USA. He was part of the Benton Way Group with Charles Aufderheide.
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 into English in 1944.
In 1961, he translated Yaşar Kemal's epic novel İnce Memed 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. He translated Robert Schmutzler's Art Nouveau into English, in an edition that 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.
