Eva Rechel-Mertens

Eva Rechel-Mertens (7 March 1895 – 12 October 1981) was a German Romance philologist and translator.

Biography

Eva Mertens was born in Perleberg. She grew up in Frankfurt an der Oder and studied Romance languages, German and English at the universities of Berlin and Marburg. In 1925 she received her doctorate in philosophy from Ernst Robert Curtius in Marburg with a thesis on Balzac and the visual arts. From 1930 to 1955 she worked as an assistant to Curtius at the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Bonn and for a time as a lecturer at Heidelberg University. In addition, she published translations from French from the end of the twenties. In 1938 she married the engineer Georg Rechel and since then she has used the name Eva Rechel-Mertens.

Eva Rechel-Mertens distinguished herself primarily through translations of works by such authors as Balzac, Roger Martin du Gard, Julien Green, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir. From the Italian she translated works by Federico Fellini. Her major work was the translation of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, which she begun in 1953 and completed in only four years.

Previous German translations of Proust's main work, on the other hand, had not gotten very far. A translation by Rudolf Schottländer, published in 1926 at Schmiede Verlag was slated by Curtius, which also led — under pressure from the French publisher with the intervention of the French ambassador — to Schmiede Verlag and then Piper Verlag, which took over the translation rights from Schmiede Verlag — to hire other translators (Walter Benjamin, Franz Hessel). The first volumes appeared, but progress came to a halt with Benjamin's emigration during the Third Reich.

It was not until 1953 that Suhrkamp Verlag made a new attempt, and Curtius' student Eva Rechel-Mertens was selected for the translation in a kind of competition. Her translation was largely praised, including by Curtius, who for the most part lived to see its publication.

Rechel-Mertens received the German Critics' Prize in 1957 and the Johann Heinrich Voß Prize in Translation in 1966. Her estate is housed in the German Literature Archive in Marbach.

Works

• Balzac und die bildende Kunst (1925; dissertation)

Translations

• Honoré de Balzac, Eine dunkle Affäre (1968)
• Honoré de Balzac, Meisternovellen (1953)
• François-Régis Bastide, Mariannosch (1958)
• Simone de Beauvoir, Alle Menschen sind sterblich (1949)
• Simone de Beauvoir, Das andere Geschlecht (1951; with Fritz Montfort)
• Simone de Beauvoir, Sie kam und blieb (1953)
• Simone de Beauvoir, Memoiren einer Tochter aus gutem Hause (1960)
• Simone de Beauvoir, Alles in allem (1974)
• Marthe Bibesco, Begegnung mit Marcel Proust (1972)
• Albert Camus, Der glückliche Tod (1972)
• Benjamin Constant, Autobiographische und kritische Schriften (1970
• Benjamin Constant, Politische Schriften (1972)
• Gustave Flaubert, Drei Erzählungen (1966)
• Marie Gevers, Die Deichgräfin (1936)
• Marie Gevers, Die glückhafte Reise (1937)
• Marie Gevers, Die Lebenslinie (1938)
• Marie Gevers, Versöhnung (1943)
• Marie Gevers, Hohe Düne (1951)
• Marie Gevers, Das Blumenjahr (1955)
• Arthur de Gobineau, Die Plejaden (1964)
• Pierre Goubert, Ludwig XIV. und zwanzig Millionen Franzosen (1973)
• Julien Green, Leviathan (1963)
• Julien Green, Aufbruch vor Tag (1964)
• Julien Green, Tausend offene Wege (1965)
• Julien Green, Adrienne Mesurat (1965)
• Julien Green, Fernes Land (1966)
• Julien Green, Treibgut (1967)
• Julien Green, Mont-Cinère (1972)
• Julien Green, Die Nacht der Phantome (1975)
• Julien Green, Junge Jahre (1986)
• Jean-Edern Hallier, Der zuerst schläft, weckt den anderen (1980)
• Roger Hauert, Walter Gieseking (1954)
• Roger Hauert, Wilhelm Furtwängler (1954)
• Roger Hauert, Wilhelm Kempff (1954)
• Roger Hauert, Carl Schuricht (1955)
• Roger Hauert, Edwin Fischer (1955)
• Alfred Kern, Der Clown (1962)
• Alfred Kern, Das zerbrechliche Glück (1964)
• Eugène Labiche, Ein Florentinerhut (1968)
• Roger Martin du Gard, Die Thibaults:
  • Das graue Heft (1928)
  • Die Besserungsanstalt (1928)
  • Sommerliche Tage 1 (1928)
  • Sommerliche Tage 2 (1928)
  • Sorellina (1929)
  • Der Tod des Vaters (1929)
• Roger Martin du Gard, Jean Barois (1930)
• Roger Martin du Gard, Kleine Welt (1935)
• Roger Martin du Gard, Enge Verhältnisse (1963; with Christoph Schwerin)
• Claude Mauriac, Marcel Proust in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (1958)
• François Mauriac, De Gaulle (1965)
• Gérard de Nerval, Aurelia und andere Erzählungen (1960)
• Marcel Proust, Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit:
  • In Swanns Welt (1953)
  • Im Schatten junger Mädchenblüte (1954)
  • Die Welt der Guermantes (1955)
  • Sodom und Gomorra (1955)
  • Die Gefangene (1956)
  • Die Entflohene (1957)
  • Die wiedergefundene Zeit (1957)
• Marcel Proust, Jean Santeuil (1965)
• Yves Régnier, Besuch bei Jeanne (1962)
• Luce Rigaux, Spiegelspiele (1959)
• Angelo Rinaldi, Les dames de France (1979)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Der Teufel und der liebe Gott (1951)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Die Fliegen. Die schmutzigen Hände (1961; with Gritta Baerlocher)
• Claude Simon, Der Wind (1959)
• Stendhal, Die Cenci und andere Erzählungen (1961)
• Stendhal, Novellen (1975; with Reinhard Kilbel)
• Über Molière (1973)
• Jules Verne, Das erstaunliche Abenteuer der Expedition Barsac (1978)
• Pierre Viénot, Ungewisses Deutschland (1931)
• Francis Walder, Die Unterhändler (1959)
• Émile Zola, Madame Sourdis (1960)