# David McDuff > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/David_McDuff > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/David_McDuff.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McDuff > Source revision: 1354487350 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Scottish translator, editor and literary critic}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2018}} {{Use British English|date=March 2018}} {{BLP sources |date=April 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = David McDuff | image = David-McDuff.jpg | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1945}} | birth_place = [Sale](/source/Sale%2C_Greater_Manchester), [Cheshire](/source/Cheshire), England, U.K. | alma_mater = [University of Edinburgh](/source/University_of_Edinburgh) | occupation = translator, editor and literary critic }} '''David McDuff''' (born 1945, [Sale](/source/Sale%2C_Greater_Manchester), [Cheshire](/source/Cheshire), England) is a Scottish translator, editor and literary critic. ==Life== McDuff attended the [University of Edinburgh](/source/University_of_Edinburgh), where he studied [Russian](/source/Russian_language) and German, gaining a [PhD](/source/Doctorate) in 1971.{{Cite web |last=McDuff |first=D. |date=1971 |title=Poetry and aesthetics of Innokenty Annensky |url=http://hdl.handle.net/1842/17392 |language=en |hdl=1842/17392}} He married mathematician [Dusa McDuff](/source/Dusa_McDuff), but they separated around 1975.{{citation|first1=Donald J.|last1=Albers|first2=Gerald L.|last2=Alexanderson|author2-link=Gerald L. Alexanderson|year=2011|title=Fascinating Mathematical People: interviews and memoirs|contribution=Dusa McDuff|pages=215–239|publisher=[Princeton University Press](/source/Princeton_University_Press)|isbn=978-0-691-14829-8}}. After living for some time in the [Soviet Union](/source/Soviet_Union), Denmark, [Iceland](/source/Iceland), and the United States, he eventually returned to the United Kingdom, where he worked for several years as a co-editor and reviewer on the [literary magazine](/source/literary_magazine) ''Stand''. He then moved to [London](/source/London), where he began his career as a literary [translator](/source/Translation).{{Cite web |title=David McDuff |url=https://swedishenglish.org/user/david.mcduff/ |access-date=2026-05-16 |website=SELTA |language=en-GB}} McDuff's translations include both foreign [poetry](/source/poetry) and [prose](/source/prose), including poems by [Joseph Brodsky](/source/Joseph_Brodsky) and [Tomas Venclova](/source/Tomas_Venclova), and [novel](/source/novel)s including [Fyodor Dostoevsky](/source/Fyodor_Dostoevsky)'s ''[Crime and Punishment](/source/Crime_and_Punishment)'', ''[The Brothers Karamazov](/source/The_Brothers_Karamazov)'', and [''The Idiot''](/source/The_Idiot_(novel)) (all three in [Penguin Classics](/source/Penguin_Classics)). His ''Complete Poems'' of [Edith Södergran](/source/Edith_S%C3%B6dergran) (1984, 1992) and ''Complete Poems'' of [Karin Boye](/source/Karin_Boye) (1994) were published by [http://www.bloodaxebooks.com Bloodaxe Books]. McDuff's translation of the Finnish-language writer [Tuomas Kyrö](/source/Tuomas_Kyr%C3%B6)'s 2011 novel ''The Beggar and the Hare'' was published in 2014. Among literary awards, he has received the 1994 [TLS/George Bernard Shaw Translation Prize](/source/TLS%2FGeorge_Bernard_Shaw_Translation_Prize) for his translation of [Gösta Ågren](/source/G%C3%B6sta_%C3%85gren)'s poems,'' A Valley in the Midst of Violence'', published by Bloodaxe, and the 2006 Stora Pris of the [Society of Swedish Authors in Finland](/source/Society_of_Swedish_Authors_in_Finland).{{Cite web |title=David McDuff {{!}} Bloodaxe Books |url=https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/david-mcduff |access-date=2026-05-16 |website=www.bloodaxebooks.com}} From 2007 to 2010, David McDuff worked as an editor and translator with [https://www.watchdog.cz Prague Watchdog], the [Prague](/source/Prague)-based [non-governmental organization](/source/non-governmental_organization) (NGO) which monitored and discussed human-rights abuses in [Chechnya](/source/Chechnya) and the [North Caucasus](/source/North_Caucasus).{{Cite web |title=David McDuff {{!}} Bloodaxe Books |url=https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/david-mcduff |access-date=2026-05-16 |website=www.bloodaxebooks.com}} McDuff was honoured with the Finnish State Award for Foreign Translators in 2013.[http://yle.fi/uutiset/david_mcduff_honoured_with_state_translators_prize/6831259?origin=rss David Mcduff Honoured With State Translators Prize], [Yleisradio](/source/Yleisradio) News in English In November 2019, his new translation of [Karin Boye](/source/Karin_Boye)'s [dystopian novel](/source/dystopian_novel) ''[Kallocain](/source/Kallocain)'' was published by [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/309767/kallocain/9780241355589.html Penguin Classics].{{Cite web |title=Kallocain by Karin Boye: 9780241608302 {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617550/kallocain-by-karin-boye-translated-with-an-introduction-by-david-mcduff/ |access-date=2026-05-16 |website=PenguinRandomhouse.com |language=en-US}} McDuff was honoured with the [Swedish Academy](/source/Swedish_Academy)'s [https://www.svenskaakademien.se/press/svenska-akademiens-tolkningspris-2021 Interpretation Prize (Tolkningspris) 2021]. His translation of ''Anteckningar'' by [Tua Forsström](/source/Tua_Forsstr%C3%B6m) (''I Walked On into the Forest'', [Bloodaxe](/source/Bloodaxe_Books), 2021) was [The Poetry Book Society](/source/Poetry_Book_Society)'s [https://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/blogs/news/winter-2021-selections Translation Choice for Winter 2021]. ==Works== *Osip Mandelʹshtam ''Selected poems'', Writers and Readers, 1983, {{ISBN|9780863160530}} *Edith Södergran ''Complete poems'', Bloodaxe Books, 1984, {{ISBN|9780906427385}} *Marina Tsvetaeva, ''Selected Poems'', Bloodaxe Books, 1987, {{ISBN|9781852240257}} *''Ice around our lips: Finland-Swedish poetry'', Bloodaxe Books, 1989, {{ISBN|9781852240110}} *Tua Forsström, ''Snow leopard'', Bloodaxe, 1990, {{ISBN|9781852241117}} *{{cite book|author=Isaak Babel|title=Collected Stories|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OPZGLukDQF4C|year=1994|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-14-018462-4}} *Andrei Bely ''Petersburg'', Penguin. 1995. {{ISBN|014-01-8696-4}} *Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, ''Rudin: On the eve'', Oxford University Press, 1999, {{ISBN|9780192833334}} *Fyodor Dostoyevsky (30 January 2003). ''[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Punishment-Penguin-Classics-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/0140449132/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mcduff+penguin+crime+and+punishment+dostoyevsky&qid=1593943643&sr=8-1 Crime and Punishment.]'' Penguin Books Limited. {{ISBN|978-0-14-044913-6}} *{{cite book|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Brothers Karamazov|url=https://archive.org/details/brotherskaramazo00dost_1|url-access=registration|date=27 February 2003|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-191568-5}} *{{cite book|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Idiot|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2-ly7aL57XgC|date=31 August 2004|publisher=Penguin Group US|isbn=978-1-101-16055-8}}{{cite news|work=The Guardian|title=Prince of Fools|last=Byatt|first=A.S.|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jun/26/highereducation.classics |date=25 June 2004|quote=I had known, without fully understanding before I read this excellent new translation, that the idea of death in this novel is peculiarly pinned to the idea of execution - what I had not thought through was that in a materialist world the dead man in the painting is an executed man, whose consciousness has been brutally cut off.}} *Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2003) [The House of the Dead.](/source/The_House_of_the_Dead_(novel)) Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-14-044456-8 *Tua Forsström, ''I studied once at a wonderful faculty'', Bloodaxe, 2006, {{ISBN|9781852246495}} *Karin Boye, ''Kallocain'', Penguin Classics, 2019, {{ISBN|9780241355589}} *Tua Forsström, I walked on into the forest, Bloodaxe, 2021, {{ISBN|9781780375823}} ==See also== {{Portal|Biography|Linguistics|Literature|Scotland}} * [List of critics](/source/List_of_critics) * [List of translators](/source/List_of_translators) * [List of University of Edinburgh people](/source/List_of_University_of_Edinburgh_people) {{Clear}} ==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== * [http://wordpress.englishphrasings.co.uk/publicat.htm The complete list of McDuff's published books of translation] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110927180957/http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/personpage.asp?author=David+McDuff Database entry at Bloodaxe Books] *[http://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000015-000008-000001&lang=1 Prague Watchdog's select bibliography of Chechnya-related works, compiled by David McDuff and others] {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:McDuff, David}} Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century Scottish male writers Category:20th-century Scottish translators Category:21st-century Scottish male writers Category:21st-century Scottish translators Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Category:British expatriate writers in Denmark Category:British expatriates in the Soviet Union Category:British literary editors Category:British literary translators Category:Expatriate writers in the United States Category:Finnish–English translators Category:Russian–English translators Category:People from Sale, Greater Manchester Category:Reeves family Category:Scottish expatriates in Denmark Category:Scottish expatriates in Iceland Category:Scottish expatriates in the United States Category:Scottish literary critics Category:Scottish magazine editors Category:Swedish–English translators Category:Translators of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Category:Writers from Cheshire Category:Writers from Edinburgh Category:Writers from Greater Manchester Category:Writers from London --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [David McDuff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McDuff) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McDuff?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.