Eva Rechel-Mertens

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Eva Rechel-Mertens (also: Eva Rechel , born March 7, 1895 in Perleberg as Eva Mertens ; † October 12, 1981 in Heidelberg ) was a German Romance studies and translator .

Life

Eva Mertens grew up in Frankfurt an der Oder and studied Romance, German and English at the universities in Berlin and Marburg . In 1925 she did her doctorate with Ernst Robert Curtius , in Marburg with a thesis on Balzac and the fine arts to a doctorate in philosophy. From 1930 to 1955 she worked as an assistant to Curtius at the Romance Studies seminar at the University of Bonn and temporarily as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg . She has also published translations from French since the late 1920s . In 1938 she married the engineer Georg Rechel and has been called Eva Rechel-Mertens ever since.

Eva Rechel-Mertens stood out primarily for her translations of works by the authors Balzac, Roger Martin du Gard , Julien Green , Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir . She translated works by Federico Fellini from Italian . Her main work was the translation of Proust's à la recherche du temps perdu, begun in 1953 and completed in just four years and published by Suhrkamp Verlag by 1957 . Previous German translations of Proust's masterpiece were opposed not get very far - a first translation of Rudolf Schottländer 1926 in the forging publishing house was Curtius panned , which also led (under pressure from the French publishing house and through the French Ambassador) that the forge Publishing and then Piper Verlag, which took over the translation rights from Schmiede-Verlag, hired other translators ( Walter Benjamin , Franz Hessel ). The first volumes appeared, but progress came to a standstill with Benjamin's emigration during the Nazi era. It was not until 1953 that Suhrkamp Verlag made a new attempt and selected the Curtius student Eva Rechel-Mertens for the translation in a kind of competition. Your translation was largely praised, including by Curtius, who mostly witnessed the publication.

Rechel-Mertens received the German Critics' Prize in 1957 and the Johann Heinrich Voss Prize for Translation in 1966 . Her estate is in the German Literature Archive in Marbach .

Works

  • Balzac and the fine arts , Marburg 1925 (under the name Eva Rechel, dissertation)

Translations

  • Honoré de Balzac : A Dark Affair , Zurich 1968 (under the name Eva Rechel)
  • Honoré de Balzac: Meisternovellen , Zurich 1953
  • François-Régis Bastide : Mariannosch , Würzburg 1958
  • Simone de Beauvoir : All people are mortal , Stuttgart 1949
  • Simone de Beauvoir: All in all , Reinbek 1974
  • Simone de Beauvoir: The Other Sex , Hamburg 1951 (translated together with Fritz Montfort)
  • Simone de Beauvoir: Memoirs of a daughter from a good family , Reinbek 1960
  • Simone de Beauvoir: It came and stayed , Hamburg 1953
  • Marthe Bibesco : Meeting Marcel Proust , Frankfurt am Main 1972
  • Albert Camus : The happy death , Reinbek 1972
  • Benjamin Constant : Benjamin Constant , Berlin
  1. Autobiographical and Critical Writings , 1970
  2. Autobiographical and Critical Writings , 1970
  3. Political Writings , 1972
  4. Political Writings , 1972
  • Gustave Flaubert : Drei Erzählungen , Zurich 1966
  • Marie Gevers : The year of flowers , Bamberg 1955
  • Marie Gevers: Die Deichgräfin , Leipzig 1936 (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  • Marie Gevers: The happy journey , Leipzig 1937 (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  • Marie Gevers: Hohe Düne , Bamberg 1951
  • Marie Gevers: Die Lebenslinie , Leipzig 1938 (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  • Marie Gevers: Reconciliation , Leipzig 1943
  • Arthur de Gobineau : The Pleiades , Zurich 1964
  • Pierre Goubert : Ludwig XIV. And twenty million French , Berlin 1973
  • Julien Green : Adrienne Mesurat , Cologne 1965
  • Julien Green: Departure before day , Cologne 1964
  • Julien Green: Fernes Land , Cologne 1966
  • Julien Green: Young Years , Cologne 1986
  • Julien Green: Leviathan , Cologne 1963
  • Julien Green: Mont-Cinère , Cologne 1972
  • Julien Green: The Night of the Phantoms , Munich 1975
  • Julien Green: A thousand open ways , Cologne 1965
  • Julien Green: Treibgut , Cologne 1967
  • Jean-Edern Hallier : The one who sleeps first wakes the other , Frankfurt am Main 1980
  • Roger Hauert : Carl Schuricht , Geneva 1955
  • Roger Hauert: Edwin Fischer , Geneva 1955
  • Roger Hauert: Walter Gieseking , Geneva 1954
  • Roger Hauert: Wilhelm Furtwängler , Geneva 1954
  • Roger Hauert: Wilhelm Kempff , Geneva 1954
  • Alfred Kern : The Clown , Reinbek 1962
  • Alfred Kern: The fragile happiness , Reinbek 1964
  • Eugène Labiche : A Florentine Hat , Reinbek 1968
  • Roger Martin du Gard : Close relationships , Vienna 1963 (translated together with Christoph Schwerin )
  • Roger Martin du Gard: Jean Barois , Vienna 1930 (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  • Roger Martin du Gard: Small World , Berlin 1935 (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  • Roger Martin du Gard: Die Thibaults , Vienna (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  1. The gray notebook , 1928
  2. The reformatory , 1928
  3. Summertime Days 1 , 1928
  4. Summertime Days 2 , 1928
  5. Sorellina , 1929
  6. The death of the father , 1929
  1. In Swann's World , 1953
  2. In the shadow of a young girl's blossom , 1954
  3. The world of the Guermantes , 1955
  4. Sodom and Gomorrah , 1955
  5. The prisoner , 1956
  6. The escaped , 1957
  7. Time found again , 1957
  • Marcel Proust: Jean Santeuil , 2 vols. Frankfurt 1965
  • Yves Régnier : Visiting Jeanne , Würzburg 1962
  • Luce Rigaux : Spiegelspiele , Würzburg 1959
  • Angelo Rinaldi : Les dames de France , Frankfurt am Main 1979
  • Jean-Paul Sartre : The flies. The dirty hands , Reinbek 1961 (translated together with Gritta Baerlocher)
  • Jean-Paul Sartre: The Devil and the Dear God , Hamburg 1951
  • Claude Simon : The Wind , Munich 1959
  • Stendhal : The Cenci and other stories , Zurich 1961
  • Stendhal: Novellen , Leipzig 1975 (translated together with Reinhard Kilbel)
  • About Molière , Zurich 1973
  • Jules Verne : The Amazing Adventure of the Barsac Expedition , Zurich 1978
  • Pierre Viénot : Unknown Germany , Frankfurt 1931 (translated under the name Eva Mertens)
  • Francis Walder : The negotiators , Würzburg 1959
  • Émile Zola : Madame Sourdis , Berlin 1960 (translated under the name Eva Rechel)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eta Harich-Schneider : Characters and Catastrophes , Ullstein 1978
  2. ↑ Short biography in Living Languages, Volume 11/12, 1966, p. 136
  3. ↑ Der Spiegel 4/1958 Proust. From memory , for the publication of the Proust translation by Rechel-Mertens
  4. ↑ But also criticized, for example by Walter Boehlich and Peter Szondi . Friedmar Apel The waterproof evening suit , FAZ, February 8, 1997, on the publication of a rework based on Rechel-Mertens by Luzius Keller , and by Nathalie Mälzer Proust or similar. Proust translation in Germany , Das Arsenal publishing house, Berlin 1996
personal data
SURNAME Rechel-Mertens, Eva
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rechel, Eva; Mertens, Eva (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Romance philologist and translator
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Pearl Mountain
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1981
Place of death Heidelberg