I met with Richard Howard on a bright October morning in his apartment near Washington Square Park. He welcomed me as he always does, standing on the threshold, one foot in, one foot out, watching me walk down the corridor with a smile on his face. We kissed hello à la française. On that Saturday morning, he wore a striped shirt of subtle shades of blue and elegant black trousers. His round glasses, of which he owns an astonishing collection (same model, in a Pantone-like array of colors) were deep blue, matching the darkest of his shirt's stripes. His socks, light blue, matched the other shade. The walls in Richard Howard's home are lined with books, from floor to ceiling, dimming the place with an opaque silence. Behind me, as I sat on the sofa, battered editions of Cioran, Gide, Baudelaire in the original—authors whose works Richard Howard translated or taught. Roland Barthes was one of them, as well as a longtime friend. -Marion Duvert, Editor and Associate Director of Foreign Rights Duvert: Samuel Beckett once wrote that there was no need of a story. Roland Barthes would have probably agreed with that, and yet I think I would like to hear it—the story of you and Barthes. How did you come to meet him? Did you meet the man first, and then the work? Or the work first, and then the man?
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10.14.10Editor & Author: Marion Duvert and Richard Howard on BarthesTranslation
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11.16.10Jonathan Galassi on Translating Giacomo LeopardiTranslation
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03.15.11Editor & Author: Jesse Coleman on Dieter SchlesakTranslation
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04.14.11Vladimir Sorokin: Ideally, Prose Simply HappensTranslation
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05.17.11Jorge Luis Borges: Borges and ITranslation
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05.17.11Fall Preview: Péter Nádas Discusses His New NovelTranslation
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07.09.12Mother BackwardsTranslation
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10.11.12Getting it Right: Rosalind Harvey on TranslationTranslation
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12.13.12Between the Abyss and MisfortuneTranslation
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08.16.13Björk Introduces SjónTranslation
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08.16.13Sjón & Hari KunzruTranslation
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03.12.14The Novel France Wanted to ForgetTranslation
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06.12.14Foreign Editions: The Southern Reach TrilogyTranslation
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11.06.14My Year in TranslationTranslation
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03.31.16Classics HomeworkTranslation
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06.09.16A Process of Discovery: Hieroglyphs and the Natural WorldTranslation
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03.09.17Carrèrisms, Carrèrists, CarrèreTranslation
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03.16.17Heresies for the LivingTranslation
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03.16.17The Gap Between LanguagesTranslation
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01.31.19In Place of Alternate RealitiesTranslation