Neugroschel, Joachim

PERSONAL:

Born in Vienna, Austria; immigrated to the United States. Education: Columbia University, graduated.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Belle Harbor, NY.

CAREER:

Freelance translator and editor. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, member of Ansky Conference, 2001.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Guggenheim fellow, 1998; National Jewish Book Award nomination, 2001; Translation Prize, French-American Foundation; three translation awards from International PEN, including award for With Downcast Eyes; The Shtetl: A Creative Anthology of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe was a main selection of the Jewish Book Club.

WRITINGS:

TRANSLATOR

(And author of notes) Jean Racine, Andromache: A Modern Translation with Notes, American R.D.M. (New York, NY), 1966.

(And author of notes) Molière, The Misanthrope: A Modern Translation with Notes, American R.D.M. (New York, NY), 1966.

(And author of notes) Molière, Learned Ladies: A Modern Translation with Notes, American R.D.M. (New York, NY), 1966.

Molière, Tartuffe, American R.D.M. (New York, NY), 1967.

Jean Arp, Collected French Writings: Poems, Essays, Memories, edited by Marcel Jean, Calder & Boyars (London, England), 1974.

(And editor and author of introduction) Yenne Velt: The Great Works of Jewish Fantasy and Occult, two volumes, Stonehill Publishing (New York, NY), 1976, published as Great Works of Jewish Fantasy: Yenne Velt, Cassell (London, England), 1976), published as Great Tales of Jewish Fantasy and the Occult, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 1986, published as Great Tales of Jewish Occult and Fantasy: The Dybbuk and Thirty Other Classic Stories, Wings Books (New York, NY), 1991.

Ilya Ehrenburg, The Life of the Automobile (fiction), Urizen (New York, NY), 1976.

Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye, Urizen Books (New York, NY), 1977.

Ovsei Driz, Boy and the Tree (poetry; for children), illustrated by Victor Pivovarov, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1978.

(And editor) The Shtetl: A Creative Anthology of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe, Richard Marek Publishers (New York, NY), 1979.

Elias Canetti, The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood, Seabury Press (New York, NY), 1979.

Expressionism, a German Intuition, 1905-1920: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (essays), Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (New York, NY), 1980.

Heinz Sielmann, Wilderness Expeditions, Franklin Watts (New York, NY), 1981.

Albert Speer, Infiltration, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1981.

Elias Canetti, The Torch in My Ear, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1982.

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Hitler: A Film from Germany, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1983.

(With Richard Lourie and others) Lucjan Dobroszycki, editor, The Chronicle of the Lódź Ghetto, 1941-1944, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1984.

Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: The End of a Myth, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Phoebe Hoss) Claude Lévi-Strauss, The View from Afar, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1985.

Gregor von Rezzori, The Death of My Brother Abel, Viking (New York, NY), 1985.

Manès Sperber, God's Water Carriers, foreword by Elie Wiesel, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1987.

Wolfgang Hildesheimer, The Collected Stories of Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Peter Härtling, A Woman, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1988.

Alexander Lernet-Holenia, The Resurrection of Maltravers, Eridanos Press (Hygiene, CO), 1989.

Tommaso Landolfi, An Autumn Story (novel), Eridanos Press (Hygiene, CO), 1989.

Germano Celant, Pistoletto, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1989.

Franz Werfel, Cella; or, The Survivors, H. Holt (New York, NY), 1989.

F. Wilhelm Christians, Paths to Russia: From War to Peace, Maxwell Macmillan International (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Lisa Harries) Günther Neske and Emil Kettering, editors, Martin Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and Answers, Paragon House Publishers (New York, NY), 1990.

Gershom Gerhard Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah, edited and revised by Jonathan Chipman, Schocken Books (New York, NY), 1991.

Alfred Döblin, Journey to Poland, edited by Heinz Graber, Paragon House Publishers (New York, NY), 1991.

Ernst Jünger, Aladdin's Problem (novel), Marsilio Publishers (New York, NY), 1992.

Hans Erich Nossack, An Offering for the Dead, Marsilio Publishers (New York, NY), 1992.

Rachid Mimouni, The Honor of the Tribe (novel), Morrow (New York, NY), 1992.

Albert Schweitzer, Letters, 1905-1965, edited by Hans Walter Bähr, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1992.

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Scribner (New York, NY), 1993, published as The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories, 1995.

Ernst Jünger, Eumeswil (novel), Marsilio Publishers (New York, NY), 1993.

Tahar Ben Jelloun, With Downcast Eyes (novel), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Pascal Bruckner, The Divine Child: A Novel of Prenatal Rebellion, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1994.

Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March (novel), Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 1995.

Pierre Seel, I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Klaus Kinski, Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski, Viking (New York, NY), 1996.

Tony Kushner, adaptor, A Dybbuk and Other Tales of the Supernatural, Theatre Communications Group (New York, NY), 1997.

Death in Venice and Other Tales, Viking (New York, NY), 1998.

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha: An Indian Tale, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher, Serpent's Tail (London, England), 1999.

(And editor) S. An-Ski, The Dybbuk and the Yiddish Imagination: A Haunted Reader, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 2000.

(And author of notes) Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2000.

(And compiler) The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust, Cooper Square Press (New York, NY), 2001.

(And editor) No Star Too Beautiful: Yiddish Stories from 1382 to the Present, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2002.

(And editor) S. An-Ski, The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey through the Jewish Pale of Settlement during World War I, H. Holt (New York, NY), 2002.

(And author of preface) Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace and Other Tales, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2003.

Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask (novel), Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2003.

(And compiler) Dovid Bergelson, The Shadows of Berlin: The Berlin Stories of Dovid Bergelson, City Lights Books (San Francisco, CA), 2005.

(And compiler and author of introduction) Radiant Days, Haunted Nights: Great Tales from the Treasury of Yiddish Folk Literature, Overlook Duckworth (New York, NY), 2005.

Peter Weiss, The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume 1, foreword by Fredrick Jameson, glossary by Robert Cohen, Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 2005.

Marquis de Sade, Philosophy in the Boudoir; or, The Immoral Mentors, introduction by Francine du Plessix Gray, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2006.

(And editor) The Golem, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King [and] Alexandre Dumas, The Tale of the Nutcracker, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Translator of other books from the French, German, Russian, and Yiddish.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joachim Neugroschel is an award-winning translator of works from German, French, and Russian authors. He is most often recognized for his skill in translating Yiddish fiction and nonfiction. Although he is the son of a respected Yiddish poet, the language was not spoken in his home when he was a boy. "My mother understood Yiddish. She felt the Yiddish world in New York was too provincial. I did not grow up hearing it spoken," Neugroschel explained to Elizabeth Glixman in Eclectica online. Instead, he had to teach himself Yiddish when he was older, a task he set for himself after reading a poorly translated work by Isaac Bashevis Singer and feeling "duty bound to write a better one." Already conversant with German and English, since he was born in Austria and raised in New York, he later taught himself French and Russian, as well. He specializes particularly in translating works by Yiddish and other Eastern European authors because, as he explained to Glixman: "It's a wide open field, and I felt a duty to translate the works because I am a good translator. Most Yiddish translators are not very good."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 1976, review of Yenne Velt: The Great Works of Jewish Fantasy and Occult, p. 22; April 1, 1994, John Shreffler, review of Eumeswil, p. 1423; November 15, 1994, Stuart Whitwell, review of The Divine Child: A Novel of Prenatal Rebellion, p. 577; July, 1996, Ted Leventhal, review of Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski, p. 1794; October 15, 2002, Hazel Rochman, review of No Star Too Beautiful: Yiddish Stories from 1382 to the Present, p. 379; May 1, 2005, George Cohen, review of Shadows of Berlin: The Berlin Stories of Dovid Bergelson, p. 1568.

Choice, December, 1976, review of Yenne Velt, p. 1304; May, 1993, R.C. Conrad, review of Aladdin's Problem, p. 1469; May, 1993, M. Winkler, review of An Offering for the Dead, p. 1469; May, 2001, S. Gittlemar, review of The Dybbuk and the Yiddish Imagination: A Haunted Reader, pp. 1623-1624.

Christian Science Monitor, September 22, 1989, review of The Shtetl: A Creative Anthology of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe, p. 10.

Contemporary Review, April, 1977, review of Yenne Velt, p. 216.

Entertainment Weekly, November 1, 1996, L.S. Klepp, review of Kinski Uncut, p. 64.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2002, review of No Star Too Beautiful, p. 1168; February 15, 2003, review of The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey through the Jewish Pale of Settlement during World War I, p. 280.

Kliatt Paperback Book Guide, January, 1983, review of The Shtetl, p. 33.

Lambda Book Report, September-October, 1995, Lev Raphael, review of Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror, p. 32.

Library Journal, July, 1998, Michael Rogers, review of Death in Venice and Other Tales, p. 143; September 15, 2002, Gene Shaw, review of No Star Too Beautiful, p. 63; March 15, 2003, Frederic Krome, review of The Enemy at His Pleasure, p. 94; November 1, 2005, Katherine K. Koenig, review of Radiant, Days, Haunted Nights: Great Tales from the Treasury of Yiddish Folk Literature, p. 84.

National Review, July 23, 2001, James Gardner, review of The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust.

New Criterion, December, 2001, Renee Winegarten, review of The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust, p. 90.

New York Review of Books, November 4, 1982, S.S. Prawer, review of The Torch in My Ear, pp. 41-44; September 26, 1985, Gabriele Annan, review of The Death of My Brother Abel, pp. 34-35.

New York Times Book Review, December 2, 1979, Alan Lelchuk, review of The Shtetl, p. 11; July 6, 1986, M.S. Kaplan, review of Yenne Velt, p. 14; February 7, 1988, Michael E. Ross, "In Short; Fiction," review of God's Water Carriers; January 20, 1991, "Doing Business with Moscow Inc.," review of Paths to Russia: From War to Peace, p. 14; November 27, 1994, Jonathan Carroll, review of The Divine Child, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, July 9, 1979, review of The Shtetl, p. 100; January 13, 1989, review of The Resurrection of Maltravers, p 84; September 1, 1989, review of Cella; or, The Survivors, p. 75; October 19, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Martin Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and Answers, p. 46; November 23, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Paths to Russia, p. 53; May 25, 1992, review of The Honor of the Tribe, p. 37; September 7, 1992, reviews of An Offering for the Dead and Aladdin's Problem, p. 80; March 8, 1993, review of With Downcast Eyes, p. 65; May 9, 1994, review of Eumeswil, p. 64; October 3, 1994, review of The Divine Child, p. 52; July 10, 1995, review of Deported Homosexual, p. 53; June 10, 1996, review of Kinski Uncut, p. 78; November 13, 2000, "December Publications," review of Great Tales of Jewish Fantasy and the Occult, p. 88; August 26, 2002, review of No Star Too Beautiful, p. 40; February 24, 2003, review of The Enemy at His Pleasure, p. 63.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, fall, 1994, Jack Byrne, review of Eumeswil, p. 230; summer, 1996, Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, review of The Radetzky March, p. 188; fall, 2005, Robert Buckeye, review of The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume 1, p. 137.

Sewanee Review, spring, 1994, Heinz R. Kuehn, review of The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, pp. lviii-lxi.

Studies in Short Fiction, winter, 1995, Mark A. Bernheim, review of The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, p. 116.

Time, September 10, 1984, Stefan Kanfer, review of The Chronicle of the Lódź Ghetto, 1941-1944, p. 71.

Washington Post Book World, August 1, 1976, Mark J. Mirsky, review of Yenne Velt, p. H8.

ONLINE

Eclectica Magazine Online,http://www.eclectica.org/ (April 16, 2007), Elizabeth Glixman, "An Interview with Joachim Neugroschel, Translator and Editor of The Shadows of Berlin."

Forward: Arts and Letters Online,http://www.forward.com/ (September 20, 2002), Irina Reyn, review of No Star Too Beautiful.

W.W. Norton Web Site,http://www.norton.com/catalog/ (Fall, 2002), publisher description of No Star Too Beautiful.