Lidia Vianu | |
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Born | [1] | 7 July 1947
Citizenship | Romania[1] |
Education | University of Bucharest, 1970[1] |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1970–present |
Known for | Contemporary British literature (mainly T.S. Eliot and James Joyce)[2][3] |
Notable work | Joyce Lexicography, 130 volumes[3] |
Awards | Poetry Society biennial Prize for Poetry in Translation, 2005[2][4][5][6] |
Lidia Vianu (born 7 July 1947 in Bucharest) is a Romanian academic, writer, and translator. She is a professor in the English department of the University of Bucharest, a writer of fiction and poetry, and a translator both from English into Romanian, and from Romanian into English.
Her mother, Beatrice Vianu (born Steiner), was an editor, and her father, Theodor Vianu, was a doctor.[1] She attended both high school (1961–1965) and university (1965–1970) in Bucharest. She graduated from the department of English at the University of Bucharest. She defended her doctoral dissertation in 1978, with a thesis titled Philosophical Lyricism in the works of T.S. Eliot and Paul Valéry. After the fall of communism, she was granted two Fulbright Scholarships, and taught in the United States, at State University of New York – Binghamton (1991–1992) and University of California, Berkeley (1997–1998). She became a professor in the University of Department English department in 1998.[1][5][6]
Vianu learned English from Leon Levițchi, Dan Duțescu, and C. George Sandulescu.[7][8][9] She published English with a Key (Romanian: Engleza cu cheie), a handbook that aims to teach English to Romanians through translation.[10]
Vianu founded the Centre for the Translation and Interpretation of the Contemporary Text at the University of Bucharest.[11]
As an academic, Vianu is the author of numerous essays, anthologies, interviews, and books of literary criticism. Most of them were written in English, while some were also published in Romanian. Her major subjects in English Studies are T.S. Eliot (T.S. Eliot, An Author for All Seasons), James Joyce, and contemporary British poets and novelists.[2][3]
As a writer, she published Censorship in Romania (selection, interviews, translations) at Central European University Press,[12] a novel, and three volumes of poetry.[13]
She has published English translations of Eugen Simion's The Return of the Author,[1] Marin Sorescu'sThe Bridge,[14][15] Mircea Dinescu's The Barbarians’ Return (with Adam Sorkin), Ion Mureşan 's The Book of Winter and Other Poems, Mircea Ivănescu's Lines poems poetry, and Ioan Es. Pop 's No Way Out of Hadesburg and Other Poems.[13]
She also published a large number of translated books in Romania. Vianu and Sorkin's translation of Marin Sorescu's The Bridge (Bloodaxe Books, 2004), was awarded the Prize of Poetry Society, London, 2005.[4][16][17]