{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}} {{Short description|American-Italian translator and journalist (1948–2020)}} {{Infobox person | name = Frederika Randall | image = File:Frederika Randall 1980s.png | caption = Randall c. 1986–1987 | birth_date = 1948 | death_date = {{Death date and age|2020|05|12|1948|df=yes}} | citizenship = United States, Italy | occupation = Translator, journalist }}
'''Frederika Randall''' (1948 – 12 May 2020) was an American-Italian translator and journalist. Born in western Pennsylvania, she expatriated to Italy in 1985 at the age of 37. As a journalist, she wrote in both English and Italian for publications such as the ''New York Times'', the ''Wall Street Journal'', and ''{{Interlanguage link|Internazionale (periodico)|lt=Internazionale|it||WD=}}''; from 2000 until her death, she was the Rome correspondent to ''The Nation''. A prolific translator, her works included ''Confessions of an Italian'', considered one of the most important Italian novels of the 19th century.
==Early life== Randall was born in 1948, in a town "downstream from Pittsburgh on the Ohio River".<ref name="bio">{{cite web|url=https://frederikarandall.wordpress.com/bio/|title=Biography|work=Frederika Randall|last=Randall|first=Frederika|date=14 October 2014 |access-date=6 February 2021}}</ref> She attended Harvard University, where she graduated with a B.A. in English literature in 1970, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she attained an M.A. in urban planning working towards a Ph.D., which was left at the all but dissertation level. For a short period, she worked as an urban planner.<ref name="cv">{{cite web|url=https://frederikarandall.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/randall-cv-january-2020.pdf|work=Frederika Randall|title=Frederika Randall CV January 2020|last=Randall|first=Frederika|date=January 2020|access-date=6 February 2021}}</ref><ref name="interview">{{cite web|url=https://www.massreview.org/node/720|title=10 Questions for Frederika Randall|work=The Massachusetts Review|last1=Zaman|first1=Amal|last2=Randall|first2=Frederika|date=27 February 2017|access-date=6 February 2021}}</ref>
==Journalism== Randall was the Rome correspondent for ''The Nation'', where she was described as "an acute chronicler of the postwar death spiral of Italian democracy".<ref name="nationobit">{{cite web|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/society/frederika-randall-obituary/|title=Remembering Frederika Randall (1948–2020)|work=The Nation|last=Guttenplan|first=D.D.|date=28 May 2020|access-date=6 February 2021}}</ref> She was an outspoken critic of Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini.<ref name="salvini">{{cite web|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/eu-elections-italy-salvini-right-wing-demagogue/|title=Italy's Right-Wing Demagogue Matteo Salvini Wins Big in the EU Elections|last=Randall|first=Frederika|work=The Nation|date=29 May 2019|access-date=6 February 2021}}</ref><ref name="berlusconi">{{cite web|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/tale-two-countries/|title=A Tale of Two Countries|work=The Nation|last=Randall|first=Frederika|date=24 September 2009|access-date=6 February 2021}}</ref> In addition to her work at ''The Nation'', Randall was a freelance writer for the ''New York Times'', the ''Wall Street Journal'', and ''Internazionale''.<ref name="arkintobit1">{{cite web|url=https://www.arkint.org/frederika-randall-tribute|title=Special Feature: Tributes to Frederika Randall (1948–2020)|work=The Arkansas International|last1=Brock|first1=Geoffrey|date=July 9, 2020|access-date=February 6, 2021}}</ref>
==Translation== Randall shifted her focus from journalism to translation in 2002, after she was catastrophically injured jumping from a third-story balcony; the disabilities she suffered as a result of the fall impaired her ability to work in the journalistic field.<ref name="dispatriata">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.arkint.org/frederika-randall-dispatriata|title=Dispatriata|magazine=The Arkansas International|issue=9|date=Fall 2020|location=Fayetteville|last1=Brock|first1=Geoffrey|last2=Randall|first2=Frederika}}</ref> She was "enormously admired" by her peers in Italian-to-English translation,<ref name="arkintobit1" /> and translated seminal works such as ''Confessions of an Italian''. Randall's translation of ''Confessions of an Italian'', the first unabridged English version, was highly praised.<ref name"arkintobit2">{{cite web|url=https://www.arkint.org/tim-parks-frederika-randall|title=Tim Parks tribute to Frederika Randall|last=Parks|first=Tim|work=The Arkansas International|date=July 9, 2020|access-date=February 6, 2021}}</ref><ref name="tls1">{{cite news|title=Blowing hard for Liberty|work=Times Literary Supplement|last=Hughes-Hallet|first=Lucy|date=October 10, 2014}}</ref> She acquired a reputation for successful translations of works previously labelled "untranslatable", such as '' Deliver Us'' (''{{Interlanguage link|Libera nos a Malo (romanzo)|lt=Libera nos a Malo|it||WD=}}'') by Luigi Meneghello.<ref name="tls2">{{cite news|title=Perbenito|work=Times Literary Supplement|last=Howard|first=Paul|date=April 6, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|accessdate=2021-02-24|title=Deliver Us|url=https://nupress.northwestern.edu/content/deliver-us|website=Northwestern University Press|archive-date=22 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210122213002/https://nupress.northwestern.edu/content/deliver-us|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Randall was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Prize in 2009 and shortlisted for the Italian Prose in Translation Award in 2017.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Elisa Segnini speaks to Frederika Randall: tilting at the Leaning Tower, or translating irony in two writers from Northeast Italy|journal=The Translator|pages=302–312|vauthors=Segnini E|date=July 20, 2018|volume=27 |issue=3 |access-date=February 6, 2021|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13556509.2018.1500132?journalCode=rtrn20|doi=10.1080/13556509.2018.1500132|s2cid=149474487 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> She would later be posthumously awarded the 2020 Italian Prose in Translation Award for ''I Am God''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://literarytranslators.org/awards/ipta|title=Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA)|work=Italian Prose in Translation Award|access-date=February 6, 2021}}</ref>
==Personal life== Randall moved to Rome from the United States in 1985.<ref name="dispatriata" /> She identified as a "dispatriate", intentionally distancing herself from her nation of origin.<ref name="arkintobit1" /> She was married to an Italian national and had one son, the biologist Tommaso Jucker.<ref name="arkintobit3">{{cite web|url=https://www.arkint.org/clarissa-botsford-frederika-randall|title=Clarissa Botsford tribute to Frederika Randall|work=The Arkansas International|last=Botsford|first=Clarissa|date=July 9, 2020|access-date=February 6, 2021}}</ref>
==Notable translations== *''Dissipato H.G.: The Vanishing'', Guido Morselli, 1977 (English pub. 2020)<ref name="vanish">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-italian-novelist-who-envisioned-a-world-without-humanity|title=The Italian Novelist Who Envisioned a World Without Humanity|magazine=The New Yorker|last=Chacoff|first=Alejandro|date=December 28, 2020|access-date=February 6, 2021}}</ref> *''I Am God'', Giacomo Sartori, 2016 (English pub. 2019)<ref name="restlessbooks">{{cite web|url=https://restlessbooks.org/blog/tribute-to-frederika-randall|title=A Tribute to Frederika Randall, "Translator of the Unsaid"|work=Restless Books|last=Stavans|first=Ilan|date=July 10, 2020|access-date=February 5, 2021}}</ref> *''{{Interlanguage link|Il comunista|lt=The Communist|it||WD=}}'', Guido Morselli, 1976 (English pub. 2017)<ref name="nationobit" /> *''Confessions of an Italian'', Ippolito Nievo, 1867 (English pub. 2014)<ref name="tls1" /> *''{{Interlanguage link|Libera nos a Malo (romanzo)|lt=Libera nos a Malo|it||WD=}}'', Luigi Meneghello, 1963 (English pub. 2012)<ref name="tls2" />
==References== {{reflist}} {{authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Randall, Frederika}} Category:Italian journalists Category:Italian translators Category:Italian–English translators Category:1948 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:Harvard College alumni Category:Italian women journalists Category:American expatriates in Italy Category:American translators