Prominent translator Michael Henry Heim dies | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it


Prominent translator Michael Henry Heim dies

October 2, 2012 02:11 PM EST |

LOS ANGELES — Michael Henry Heim, an internationally known translator who created highly praised English versions of such masterpieces as "Death in Venice" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," has died. He was 69.

Heim who taught Slavic languages and literature at the University of California, Los Angeles for 40 years, died Saturday at his West Los Angeles home from complications of melanoma, the school said in an obituary.

"He was a theorist, a practitioner and a cultural activist, among the finest literary translators of the last half-century and a pioneer in the field of translation studies," said a statement from Ronald Vroon, the department chair.

Heim won numerous awards for his work translating Eastern European, Russian and German authors. He spoke or read a dozen languages.

"He put himself to sleep at night by learning vocabulary words in whatever language he was studying," said his wife, Priscilla Heim.

Heim translated Czech novelist Milan Kundera's bestselling "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting."