{{Short description|Russian-British translator, intellectual, and feminist (1923–2018)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2025}}{{Use British English|date=July 2025}} {{Infobox writer | birth_name = Anna Zisserman | birth_date = 1923 | birth_place = Harbin, Republic of China | spouse = Stephen Bostock (1942–?) | partner = John Berger (1958–1970s) | death_date = 23 February 2018 (aged 94) | death_place = Geneva, Switzerland | occupation = Translator, intellectual, feminist | children = 4 }}

'''Anya Berger''' (née '''Anna''' '''Zisserman'''; published as '''Anna Bostock'''; 1923 – 23 February 2018) was a Russian-British translator, intellectual, and feminist, whose work has been described as having "shaped the horizons of the English-speaking left on issues of race, gender and class".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Overton |first=Tom |date=2018-02-27 |title=Anya Berger (1923-2018) |url=https://www.frieze.com/article/anya-berger-1923-2018 |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Frieze |language=en}}</ref> She was best known for her translations of thinkers such as Leon Trotsky, Wilhelm Reich, Vladimir Lenin, and Karl Marx.

== Early life and education == Anna Zisserman, later known as Anya, was born in 1923 in Harbin, China, to Matilda ({{Nee|Glogau}}) and Vladimir Zisserman, a Russian landowner. Zisserman had older siblings, and spent her early years among an émigré community displaced by the Russian revolution before travelling to Vienna in 1936 to live with her mother's Jewish family members. Following the Nazi annexation of Austria, Zisserman escaped to Britain without her family and attended the St Paul's Girls' School in London.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Lambert |first=Sonia |date=2018-03-06 |title=Anya Berger obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/06/anya-berger-obituary |access-date=2025-06-20 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite magazine |last=Overton |first=Tom |date=2018-06-06 |title=Life in the Margins |url=https://newartexaminer.net/life-in-the-margins/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=New Art Examiner |pages=17-19 |language=en-GB |volume=32 |issue=5}}</ref>

She studied modern language at the University of Oxford.<ref name=":0" />

== Career == Bostock began her career working as a Russian monitor with Reuters,<ref name=":3" /> translating radio broadcasts and some of Stalin’s speeches.<ref name=":0" />

Following the end of World War II, Bostock continued her translation work, now for the recently established United Nations. She joined a circle of leftwing artists and intellectuals, among them the historian Eric Hobsbawm, writer Doris Lessing, and artist Peter de Francia.<ref name=":0" />

She wrote fiction reviews for the ''Manchester Guardian'', and read for the publishers Methuen and Hutchinson. As Anna Bostock, she became a prolific translator into English, including of works by Trotsky, Lenin, Marx, Le Corbusier, and Ernst Fischer.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |date=27 February 2018 |title=Anya Bostock, 1923–2018 |url=https://artreview.com/news-27-feb-2018-anya-bostock-1923-2018/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=ArtReview |language=en}}</ref>

After moving to Geneva, Berger resumed translation work for the United Nations and became active in the women's liberation movement.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />

In 1972, Berger made a BBC radio programme titled ''Women’s Liberation''. She was also a contributor to the feminist journal ''Spare Rib.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />''

Berger continued working and travelling widely into her 80s, described as remaining "a ferocious intellectual" into her later years.<ref name=":0" /> Her last translation was ''Gesture and Speech'' by André Leroi-Gourhan, published in 1993.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Anna Bostock Archives |url=https://archipelagobooks.org/book_translator/bostock-anna/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Archipelago Books |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Personal life == Zisserman married British intelligence officer Stephen Bostock in 1942, with whom she later had two children. The marriage ended shortly after World War II. Following the divorce, Bostock took his children from the United States back to England, resulting in a public custody battle.<ref name=":0" />

Anya Bostock returned to England. There, she met Italian-British painter Peter de Francia, with whom she had a romantic relationship. She credited him for her political awakening.<ref name=":2" /> In 1951, she met writer and artist John Berger, beginning a romantic relationship in 1958. She later changed her name to Berger by deed poll.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=4 January 2017 |title=John Berger |work=The Times |pages=47}}</ref> The couple had two children before separating in 1976.<ref name=":2" />

She died in Geneva on 23 February 2018 at age 94.<ref name=":0" />

== Legacy == Since her death, writers such as Tom Overton have posited the importance of recognising Berger and her work, including "as part of a broader recent movement to recognize the labour of translators, not least because it has often been invisible work, often by women."<ref name=":1" /> Berger had spoken six languages: Russian, German, French, English, some Polish and Serbo-Croat.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> She is noted for having been responsible for translating "some of the great socialist thought of the twentieth century into English".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Overton |first=Tom |date=2019-02-07 |title=The Constructor |url=https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/02/the-constructor |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Tribune |language=en-GB}}</ref>

== Selected bibliography ==

* ''The Modulor'' by Le Corbusier (with Peter de Francia; London: Faber and Cambridge, Mass,: Harvard University Press, 1954) * ''Modulor 2'' by Le Corbusier (with Peter de Francia; London: Faber, 1958, and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958) * ''Julio Jurenito'' by Ilya Ehrenburg (with Yvonne Kapp; London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1958) * People and Life: Memoirs of 1891-1917 by Ilya Ehrenburg (with Yvonne Kapp; London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961) * ''Return to My Native Land'' by Aimé Césaire (with John Berger; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969) * ''Marx in His Own Words'' (London: Penguin Press, 1970) * ''The Necessity of Art'' by Ernst Fischer (London: Penguin, 1971) * ''Lenin in His Own Words'' (London: Penguin Press, 1972) * ''Sex-pol: Essays 1929-34'' by Wilhelm Reich, ed. Lee Baxandall (with Tom Dubose and Lee Baxandall (New York: Random House, 1972) * ''The Great Art of Living Together: Poems on the Theater'' by Bertolt Brecht (with John Berger; London: Grenville, 1972) * ''Understanding Brecht'' by Walter Benjamin (London: NLB, 1973) * ''The Theory of the Novel'' by György Lukács (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974) * ''Soul and Form'' by György Lukács (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974) * ''Gesture and Speech'' by André Leroi-Gourhan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993)

== References == <references />

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Anya}} Category:1923 births Category:2018 deaths Category:People from Harbin Category:20th-century British women writers Category:20th-century British translators Category:20th-century Russian translators