Discipline: Literature

Édouard Roditi

Discipline: Literature
Region: Paris, FRANCE
MacDowell Fellowships: 1985

Édouard Roditi (1910–1992)

Poet, essayist, and translator Edouard Roditi was born in Paris to American parents. He studied at Oxford University and earned his B.A. from the University of Chicago.

His books of poetry and prose included Thrice Chosen (1981), The Confessions of a Saint (1977), The Delights of Turkey (1977), Meetings with Conrad (1977), Emperor of Midnight (1974), New Hieroglyphic Tales: Prose Poems (1968), Dialogues on Art (1960, 1980), Poems 1928–1948 (1949), Oscar Wilde (1947), Prison within Prison: Three Hebrew Elegies (1941), and Poems for F. (1934).

An art critic for the French journal L’Arche for roughly 30 years, Roditi was closely associated with the Surrealist movement, and he was the first to translate the writings of the French surrealist Andre Breton into English. He lived most of his life in Paris, though he spent time in the United States and worked as a translator at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. He died in Spain in 1992.

Studios

Schelling

Édouard Roditi worked in the Schelling studio.

Marian MacDowell funded construction of this studio the year that the organization was established and the first artists arrived for residency. It was called Bark Studio until 1933, when it was renamed in honor of Ernest Schelling, a composer, pianist, and orchestral leader who served as president of what was then called the Edward MacDowell…

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