G. J. Racz

G. J. Racz is professor of Humanities at LIU Brooklyn (http://www.liu.edu), review editor for Translation Review (https://www.utdallas.edu/alta/publications/translation-review), and a past president of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) (http://www.literarytranslators.org). 

In addition to his critical writings on literary translation, Racz has published many translations from Spanish, mostly of poetic works and verse drama.  He has contributed poetry translations to The XUL Reader:  An Anthology of Argentine Poetry 1980-1996 (ROOF BOOKS, 1997) (http://www.bc.edu/research/xul/xul_reader), José Lezama Lima:  Selections (U of California P, 2005) (http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520234765), and The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry:  A Bilingual Anthology (Oxford UP, 2009) (http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-book-of-latin-american-poetry-9780195124545;jsessionid=134DD0E155EC79BA5B5036CFF1484726?cc=us&lang=en&), among other collections.

Racz has also published nine volumes of translations of the Peruvian author Eduardo Chirinos:  Reasons for Writing Poetry (Salt Publishing, 2011) (http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=9781844715213) and Written in Missoula (U of Montana P, 2011) (http://www.amazon.com/Written-In-Missoula-Eduardo-Chirinos/dp/0615512089), The Smoke of Distant Fires (Open Letter Books, 2012), (http://www.openletterbooks.org/products/the-smoke-of-distant-fires), While the Wolf Is Around (Diálogos Books, 2014) (http://www.lavenderink.org/content/diag/255), Thirty-Five Zoology Lessons (and Other Didactic Poems) (DíazGrey Editores, 2015) (http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/product/thirty-five-zoology-lessons-eduardo-chirinos-bilingual-edition), Medicine for the Ailments of Falcons (Literal Publishing, 2015) (http://literalmagazine.com/store), Still Life with Flies (Dos Madres Press, 2016) (https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/still-life-with-flies-eduardo-chirinos), and The Bayard Street Tightrope Walker (U of Montana P, 2017) (http://www.umt.edu/umpress/umpress-books/chirinos.php), and A Brief History of Music and “Fourteen Forms of Melancholy” (Diálogos Books, 2020) https://www.lavenderink.org/site/shop/brief-history-of-music/?v=76cb0a18730b.

Racz has also published Architects of the Imaginary, a volume of translations of the Spanish poet Marta López Luaces (Gival Press, 2022), https://www.givalpress.com/books-2/architects-of-the-imaginary-%2F-los-arquitectos-del-imaginario-, and two by the Chilean poet Óscar Hahn:  The Butchers’ Reincarnation:  Visions of the Nuclear Age (Dos Madres Press, 2020)  https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/the-butchers-reincarnation-visions-of-the-nuclear-age-by-oscar-hahn/, Poemas selectos / Selected Poems (Nueva York Poetry Press, 2021) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1950474518?tag=wixlabs1234-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1.

Regarding works for the theater, Racz edited Three Comedies by Jaime Salom (UP of Colorado, 2004) http://www.upcolorado.com/book/Three_Comedies_Paper), in which his translation of the mock-Renaissance farce El señor de las patrañas (Eng. Rigmaroles) appears.  His translations of the Golden Age dramatists Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño (Eng. Life Is a Dream) and Lope Félix de Vega Carpio’s Fuenteovejuna were commissioned for the Norton Anthology of Drama (2009) (http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nadrama).  The two works were also published as stand-alone volumes, the former in the Penguin Classics series (2006) (http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780143104827,00.html?Life_Is_a_Dream_Pedro_Calder%F3n_de_la_Barca) and the latter by Yale UP (2010) (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/bookprinter.asp?isbn=9780300181524). His renderings of Miguel de Cervantes’s La Numancia (Eng. The Siege of Numancia), Lope de Vega’s El perro del hortelano (Eng. The Dog in the Manger), and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Los empeños de una casa (Eng. Trials of a Noble House) appear with Life Is a Dream and Fuenteovejuna in The Golden Age of Spanish Drama:  A Norton Critical Edition (2018) (http://books.wwnorton.com/books/webad.aspx?id=4294995413).  Dark Stone, Racz’s translation of Alberto Conejero’s La piedra oscura, was published in Stages of Desire (ESTRENO Contemporary Spanish Plays 39, 2016) (https://www.pace.edu/emplibrary/estrenoplaysform092806.pdf) and in a bilingual edition (2019) https://books.google.com/books/about/Stages_of_Desire.html?id=LCM5zgEACAAJ&hl=en&output=html_text.  His renderings of the pieces La mala imagen (Eng., Bad Image) by Juan Mayorga and Justo en la noche (Eng., Under Dark of Night) by Raúl Hernández Garrido appeared in Microtheatre:  A Door County Debut of Short Plays from Wisconsin and Spain (ESTRENO Studies, 2022) https://secure.touchnet.net/C21706_ustores/web/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=457.

Rigmaroles was given a staged reading by The Actor’s Way in Manhattan in 2002.  Life Is a Dream has been staged by Long Island University—Brooklyn (2007), Duke University (2008), A Festival of Fools (2010), Brigham Young University—Idaho (2011), Hampden-Sydney College (2013), and Elmhurst College (2018).  Fuenteovejuna was performed by the M. F. A. program of Mary Baldwin College (2014).  The translation was used as supertitles for the Spanish-language adaptation of the play at Princeton’s Berlind Theatre (2022).  Racz’s translation of Salom’s Las griegas (Eng. Callas and Medea) was commissioned and staged by the Thalia Spanish Theatre (http://www.thaliatheatre.org/pages/home.cfm) in New York City in 2013.  Dark Stone was giving staged readings at New York’s Instituto Cervantes and at the University of Southern Indiana in 2018.  It received full stagings in 2022 in a joint production of Ryan Repertory with LIU Brooklyn’s Theatre Department and from Artistas Españoles en Nueva York (AENY) in collaboration with Repertorio Español.

Racz has won the Luz Bilingual Publishing Poetry Translation Contest (1998), International Quarterly’s Crossing Boundaries Award (2000), the American Translators Association’s Alicia Gordon Award for Word Artistry in Translation (2010), and was the co-winner of the 2012 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.  His translation of The Smoke of Distant Fires was shortlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry Translation in 2013.  Architects of the Imaginary was co-winner of the Best Book in the Category of Multicultural, Pinnacle Book Achievement (National Association of Book Entrepreneurs) in 2022.