Frederika Randall

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 Internazionale; 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.

Frederika Randall
Randall c. 1986–1987
Born1948
Died12 May 2020(2020-05-12) (aged 71–72)
CitizenshipUnited States, Italy
Occupation(s)Translator, journalist

Early life

Randall was born in 1948, in a town "downstream from Pittsburgh on the Ohio River".[1] 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.[2][3]

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".[4] She was an outspoken critic of Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini.[5][6] In addition to her work at The Nation, Randall was a freelance writer for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Internazionale.[7]

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.[8] She was "enormously admired" by her peers in Italian-to-English translation,[7] 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.[9][10] She acquired a reputation for successful translations of works previously labelled "untranslatable", such as Deliver Us (Libera nos a Malo) by Luigi Meneghello.[11][12]

Randall was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Prize in 2009 and shortlisted for the Italian Prose in Translation Award in 2017.[13] She would later be posthumously awarded the 2020 Italian Prose in Translation Award for I Am God.[14]

Personal life

Randall moved to Rome from the United States in 1985.[8] She identified as a "dispatriate", intentionally distancing herself from her nation of origin.[7] She was married to an Italian national and had one son, the biologist Tommaso Jucker.[15]

Notable translations

References
  1. Randall, Frederika (14 October 2014). "Biography". Frederika Randall. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  2. Randall, Frederika (January 2020). "Frederika Randall CV January 2020" (PDF). Frederika Randall. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  3. Zaman, Amal; Randall, Frederika (27 February 2017). "10 Questions for Frederika Randall". The Massachusetts Review. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  4. Guttenplan, D.D. (28 May 2020). "Remembering Frederika Randall (1948–2020)". The Nation. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  5. Randall, Frederika (29 May 2019). "Italy's Right-Wing Demagogue Matteo Salvini Wins Big in the EU Elections". The Nation. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  6. Randall, Frederika (24 September 2009). "A Tale of Two Countries". The Nation. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  7. Brock, Geoffrey (9 July 2020). "Special Feature: Tributes to Frederika Randall (1948–2020)". The Arkansas International. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  8. Brock, Geoffrey; Randall, Frederika (Fall 2020). "Dispatriata". The Arkansas International. No. 9. Fayetteville.
  9. Parks, Tim (9 July 2020). "Tim Parks tribute to Frederika Randall". The Arkansas International. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  10. Hughes-Hallet, Lucy (10 October 2014). "Blowing hard for Liberty". Times Literary Supplement.
  11. Howard, Paul (6 April 2012). "Perbenito". Times Literary Supplement.
  12. "Deliver Us". Northwestern University Press. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  13. Segnini E (20 July 2018). "Elisa Segnini speaks to Frederika Randall: tilting at the Leaning Tower, or translating irony in two writers from Northeast Italy". The Translator. 27 (3): 302–312. doi:10.1080/13556509.2018.1500132. S2CID 149474487. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  14. "Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA)". Italian Prose in Translation Award. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  15. Botsford, Clarissa (9 July 2020). "Clarissa Botsford tribute to Frederika Randall". The Arkansas International. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  16. Chacoff, Alejandro (28 December 2020). "The Italian Novelist Who Envisioned a World Without Humanity". The New Yorker. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  17. Stavans, Ilan (10 July 2020). "A Tribute to Frederika Randall, "Translator of the Unsaid"". Restless Books. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
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