Michael Henry Heim, 1943–2012

last updated 8 January 2015

Michael Henry Heim translated some 32 works of literature into English from eight languages, but he considered his work a very different thing from creative writing. The translator’s skill, he said, was to plant a “paradox” in readers’ minds, so that they believed they were reading in two languages at once. “It’s a scam, if you like,” he said, “a feat of legerdemain.”

Heim studied Chinese, Russian, and Spanish at Columbia University and Slavic languages at Harvard before coming to “wide attention as a translator” in 1973 with a collection of Anton Chekhov’s letters, said The New York Times. He was best known for translating the works of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass and Czech author Milan Kundera, including the best seller The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Heim fought to preserve that novel’s iconic title, a literal translation from the Czech that Kundera felt was “a bit hard going” for American readers. “We’re not children, I told the editor,” Heim recalled. “And so it stayed.”

Heim’s contribution to the craft of translation went far beyond his work, saidthe Los Angeles Times. In 2003, he anonymously donated $734,000 to establish the nonprofit PEN Translation Fund, which has awarded grants to the translators of more than 100 works, including those by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño and Iranian novelist Shahriar Mandanipour. Heim and his wife paid for the grant by committing themselves to a life of frugality. “We never went to restaurants or movies, and Mike wore his clothes for years on end,” said his widow, Priscilla. “Those things add up, and added to the fund.”