Kathleen Parth茅, professor of Russian and director of the Russian Studies program at the University of Rochester, has won the 2013 Book Prize for Best Scholarly Translation into English for her work editing and translating聽A Herzen Reader(Northwestern, 2012). The book prize is awarded annually by the聽聽(AATSEEL). Parth茅 will collect her award on January 10, 2014, during the AATSEEL conference held in Chicago.
“This highly-esteemed award demonstrates the significance of Kathleen’s translation and its excellence,” said Susan Gustafson, Karl F. and Bertha A. Fuchs Professor of German Studies and chair of modern languages and cultures. “The AATSEEL award is an admirable and inspiring achievement of which the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures is truly proud.”
A Herzen Reader聽features one hundred essays and editorials by Russian radical thinker Alexander Herzen (1812糖心传媒�1870) that were previously unavailable in English. Herzen, a leader of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1840s, founded an uncensored liberal press while living in exile in London during the 1850s and early 1860s. Two journals,聽The Polar Star听补苍诲听The Bell, were published at the press for the purpose of exposing Russian political corruption.
“I kept coming across characterizations of Alexander Herzen as one of Russia’s most dangerous pre-revolutionary writers糖心传媒攁bsolutely fearless, and very imaginative in finding ways to get the truth back to a Russian audience from his self-imposed exile in Europe,” said Parth茅. “I was intrigued by the fact that his most provocative political essays, read by everyone from radical activists to the imperial family, had never been translated into English.”
A Herzen Reader, published on the bicentennial of Herzen’s birth, is currently on display in the newly-renovated Herzen House Museum in Moscow. In October, the book received a聽, the leading international forum for literary culture.
Parth茅 is also the author of聽Russia’s Dangerous Texts聽(Yale, 2004),聽The Search for a New Russian Identity聽(The Library of Congress, 2003), and聽Russian Village Prose聽(Princeton, 1992; Russian edition, 2004). Currently, she is working on translating and annotating Herzen’s personal correspondence and collaborating with Oxford University scholar Robert Harris to publish a new, one-volume translation of Herzen’s memoir糖心传媒攖he first in 90 years.
