Jonathan Kaplansky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jonathan Kaplansky | |
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| Born | Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada |
| Occupation | Translator |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Genre | Literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, youth literature |
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| Website | |
| www | |
Jonathan Kaplansky is a Canadian literary translator based in Montreal, Quebec. He is best known for his English translations of contemporary French and Québécois literature. He has translated several prominent Québec authors, such as Hélène Dorion, Lise Gauvin, Louis-Philippe Hébert, Hélène Rioux, and Lise Tremblay, as well as a journal by Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux.[1][2]
Born in Saint John, New Brunswick,[1] Kaplansky was educated at the Pomfret School in Connecticut before attending Tufts University, where he majored in French. During his undergraduate studies, he spent a year in Paris at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. He later returned to Montreal, where he earned a Master of Arts in French Language and Literature from McGill University. He furthered his studies at the University of Ottawa, obtaining a Master of Arts in Translation.
Career
Kaplansky began his career in education, teaching French and English as a second language before transitioning into professional translation. In 1999, while working in Ottawa, he published his first article in English on the translator Eleanor Marx in the journal Circuit. He has translated numerous literary works, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and youth literature.[3] Kaplansky's translation of Lise Gauvin's writing has a dexterity and familiarity.[4] His translation of Reading Nijinsky by Hélène Rioux "is surprisingly natural—the book's preoccupation with linguistic interplay lets it leap into English quite easily, and Jonathan Kaplansky has kept the narrative clean and meditative."[5] His most notable translation is Things Seen (La Vie extérieure) by Annie Ernaux, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2010, which Susan Salter Reynolds in The Los Angeles Times described as a "beautiful translation."[6] In 2022, he translated the libretto for the opera Yourcenar: Une île de passions by Hélène Dorion and Marie-Claire Blais, which was performed by the Opéra de Montréal.[7] Kaplansky is an active member of the literary community and has served on the executive of the Literary Translators' Association of Canada (LTAC).[8]
