Edmund Keeley

Edmund Leroy Keeley detto "Mike" (Damasco, 5 febbraio 1928 – 23 febbraio 2022) è stato uno scrittore, traduttore e saggista statunitense.

Biografia

Figlio del diplomatico James Hugh Keeley Jr e fratello del diplomatico Robert V. Keeley, Edmund Keeley nacque in Siria e crebbe tra il Canada, la Grecia e Washington. Nel 1949 ottenne la laurea presso l'Università di Princeton, mentre nel 1952 conseguì un dottorato di ricerca in letterature comparate presso l'Università di Oxford. Professore di letteratura inglese, scrittura creativa e studi ellenici a Princeton fino al 1994, Keeley ha tradutto in inglese le opere di importanti poeti greci del XX secolo, tra cui Konstantinos Kavafis, Ghiannis Ritsos, Giorgos Seferis e Odysseas Elytīs. Per la sua opera come traduttore è stato finalista del National Book Award nel 1973 e ha vinto il PEN Award per la poesia in traduzione nel 2014 per la sua versione inglese dei Diari dell'esilio di Ritsos.

Opere principali

Romanzi

• The Gold-hatted Lover, Little, Brown and Company, 1961
• The Imposter, Doubleday, 1970
• Voyage to a Dark Island, Curtis Books, 1972
• A Wilderness Called Peace, Simon & Schuster, 1985
• Albanian Journal, the Road to Elbasan, White Pine Press, 1997
• Inventing Paradise. The Greek Journey, 1937-47, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999
• Some Wine for Remembrance, White Pine Press, 2002
• Borderlines, A Memoir, White Pine Press, 2005
• The Megabuilders of Queenston Park, Wild River Books, 2014
• Requiem for Mary, Greenhouse Review Press, 2015

Poesia

• The Problem of Time and Other Poems, Greenhouse Review Press. 2018

Saggistica

• Problems in rendering Modern Greek, Thessalonike, 1975
• Cavafy's Alexandria: Study of a Myth in Progress, Harvard University Press, 1976
• Ritsos in Parentheses, Princeton University Press, 1979
• The Salonika Bay Murder, Cold War Politics and the Polk Affair, Princeton University Press, 1989
• School for Pagan Lovers, Rutgers University Press, 1993
• On Translation: Reflections and Conversations, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998

Traduzioni e curatele

• Six Poets of Modern Greece, Alfred A. Knopf, 1961
• Vassilis Vassilikos, 'The Plant,' 'The Well,' 'The Angel': A Trilogy, Knopf, 1964.
• Four Greek Poets, Penguin Books, 1965
• George Seferis, Collected Poems: 1924-1955, Princeton University Press, 1967
• C. P. Cavafy, Passions and Ancient Days, Hogarth Press, 1972
• Modern Greek Writers: Solomos, Calvos, Matesis, Palamas, Cavafy, Kazantzakis, Seferis, Elytis, Princeton University Press, 1972
• C. P. Cavafy, Selected Poems, Princeton University Press, 1972
• Odysseus Elytis, The Axion Esti, Pittsburgh University Press, 1972
• C. P. Cavafy, Three Poems of Passion, Plain Wrapper Press, 1975
• C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, Princeton University Press, 1975
• Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Princeton University Press, 1979
• Odysseus Elytis, Selected Poems Viking-Penguin, 1981
• The Dark Crystal: An Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry, Denise Harvey & CO, 1981
• Voices of Modern Greece: Selected Poems of C.P. Cavafy, Angelos Sikelianos, George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis, Nikos Gatsos, Princeton University Press, 1981
• Yannis Ritsos, Return and Other Poems Parallel Editions, 1983
• C. P. Cavafy, A Selection of Poems, Camberwell Press, 1985
• Yannis Ritsos, Exile and Return: Selected Poems, 1967-74 Ecco Press, 1985
• The Legacy of R.P. Blackmur: Essays, Memoirs, Texts, Ecco Press, 1987
• Yannis Ritsos: Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses Princeton University Press, 1991
• The Essential Cavafy, Ecco Press, 1995
• George Seferis, Collected Poems, Princeton University Press, 1995
• Angelos Sikelianos: Selected Poems, Denise Harvey, 1996
• George Seferis and Edmund Keeley: Correspondence, 1951-1971 Princeton University Library, 1997
• A Century of Greek Poetry 1900-2000: Bilingual Edition, Cosmos Publishing, 2004
• Selected Poems Of Odysseus Elytis, Anvil Press, 2007
• The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, W. W. Norton, 2009

Onorificenze

Commendadori dell'Ordine della Fenice

«Per meriti letterari»
— 2001

Collegamenti esterni

• (EN) Opere di Edmund Keeley, su Open Library, Internet Archive.