{{Short description|English translator of Hungarian (1947–2020)}}
'''Tim Wilkinson''' (1947<ref>{{cite web |title=Hungarian Literature Online, Tim Wilkinson: Translator of Hungarian Has Passed Away |url=https://hlo.hu/news/tim-wilkinson-translator-of-hungarian-has-passed-away.html |website=Hungarian Literature Online |access-date=8 November 2021 |date=16 September 2020}}</ref> –2020) was an English translator of Hungarian. He is best known for his translations of Nobel Prize laureate Imre Kertész and Miklós Szentkuthy.<ref name="proust">{{cite web |title=Proust Questionnaire: Tim Wilkinson |url=https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2015/02/24/proust-questionnaire-tim-wilkinson/ |website=Asymptote |access-date=8 November 2021 |date=24 February 2015}}</ref>
==Biography== After studying biochemistry at the University of Liverpool, he moved to Budapest in 1970 to work at the Central Institute of Physics.<ref name="guardian">{{cite web |last1=Sherwood |first1=Peter |title=Tim Wilkinson obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/12/tim-wilkinson-obituary |website=The Guardian |access-date=8 November 2021 |date=12 October 2020}}</ref> He arrived not knowing Hungarian and learnt the language “on the hoof” by living in Budapest with his Hungarian wife.<ref name="proust" />
Wilkinson worked in the pharmaceutical industry and only started literary translations in the late nineties after being horrified with the existing English translation of Kertész’s ''Kaddish for an Unborn Child''.<ref>{{cite web |title=An "Earie" Instinct |url=https://hlo.hu/interview/an_earie_instinct.html |website=Hungarian Literature Online |access-date=8 November 2021 |date=3 March 2009}}</ref> He was also concerned with the general lack of English translations of Hungarian literature, noting that on average ten times more Hungarian titles are published annually in translation in Germany than the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Tim |title=Why does anyone translate |url=https://www.eurozine.com/why-does-anyone-translate/ |website=Eurozine |access-date=8 November 2021 |date=30 January 2006}}</ref>
Wilkinson also produced a new translation of Fatelessness which won the PEN America translation prize in 2005 and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize in 2006.<ref name="guardian" /> The latter part of his professional life was dedicated to translating Miklós Szentkuthy.
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Tim}} Category:1947 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Hungarian–English translators Category:Alumni of the University of Liverpool