Mavlevich, N. (2024). Montaigne’s Coffer, or A Translator’s Adventures. Moscow: Illyuminator. (In Russ.)

Abstract

The review is devoted to  a memoir by the pre-eminent contemporary translator of French prose, Natalia Mavlevich, who writes about her life and method. The first part features Mavlevich’s early steps in the trade: the university and the professors and colleagues who encouraged her interest in translation and shared helpful strategies and insights. In the second part, Mavlevich details her work on favourite translations: Comte de Lautréamont’s Les Chants de Maldoror, Marc Chagall’s Ma Vie, plays by Eugène Ionesco’s, Louis Aragon’s La Mise à mort, Émile Ajar’s (Romain Gary’s) Gros câlin, Valère Novarina’s L’Opérette imaginaire, Philippe Delerm’s ‘happiness vitamins,’ the diary of Hélène Berr, a girl who died in a Nazi concentration camp, and Montaigne’s Journal de voyage en Italie. Mavlevich shows deference, love, and a sense of humour in her reminiscences about L. Lungina, E. Khalifman, N. Naumov, Y. Yakhnina, A. Revich, K. Tsurinov, and G. Kosikov. This markedly optimistic, concise, and straightforward memoir is a testament to what an arduous and exciting task translation is: the art of building seamless bridges across cultures.