Len Rix

Len Rix is a Zimbabwe-born translator of Hungarian literature into English, noted for his translations of Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight and The Pendragon Legend and of Magda Szabó's The Door and Katalin Street.

Early life and education

Len Rix was born in Zimbabwe in 1942, where he studied English, French and Latin at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1963 he won a Commonwealth Scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he read English. He worked as a lecturer at the University of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and subsequently as a teacher of English at Manchester Grammar School, before retiring in 2005 to live in Cambridge. Rix learned Hungarian on his own, using textbooks, audio recordings and literature.

Translations

Len Rix's first published translation from Hungarian was of Tamás Kabdebó's Minden idők, but he is best known for his renderings of Antal Szerb, especially Journey by Moonlight, and of Magda Szabó's The Door and Katalin Street.

Awards and honors

2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for the translation of Magda Szabó's The Door
2006 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize winner, for the translation of Magda Szabó's The Door
2015 New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2015, for Magda Szabó's The Door
2018 PEN Translation Prize, winner, for the translation of Katalin Street by Magda Szabó
2019 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for the translation of Magda Szabó's Katalin Street
2020 Hyman Wingate Prize for Writing about Jewry, long-listed for Magda Szabó's Katalin Street
2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for the translation of Magda Szabó's Abigail
2021 Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit for his work in translating Hungarian literary classics into the English language

Literary works translated from Hungarian

A Time for Everything, Cardinal Press, 1995Journey by Moonlight, Pushkin Press, 2001The Door, Harvill Secker, 2005The Pendragon Legend, Pushkin Press, 2006Oliver VII, by Antal Szerb, Pushkin Press, 2007The Queen's Necklace, Pushkin Press, 2009Love in a Bottle, by Antal Szerb, Pushkin Press, 2010The Third Tower, by Antal Szerb, Pushkin Press, 2014A Martian's Guide to Budapest, by Antal Szerb, Magvető, 2015Katalin Street, by Magda Szabó, NYRB Classics, 2017Abigail, by Magda Szabó, NYRB Classics, 2020The Enchanted Night, Transylvanian and other Tales, by Miklós Bánffy, Pushkin Press, 2020The Fawn'', by Magda Szabó, MacLehose Press, 2023

Other translations

In the Footsteps of the Gods,''The Hungarian Quarterly'' No. 185, Spring 2007

Other publications

"Shakespeare's Meaning in 'The Merchant of Venice'", University of Rhodesia 'Studies in Literature' Series, No 7, 1974
"Charles Mungoshi's 'The Coming of the Dry Season'", Mambo Review of Contemporary African Literature, November 1974
"Some Recent Criticism of Doris Lessing", Zambezia, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1977The Selected Works of Arthur Shearly Cripps, Mambo Press, 1976 Rhodesian Literature in English: A Bibliography, Mambo Press, 1977
"The Subtle Art of Antal Szerb", The Hungarian Quarterly, No. 186, Summer 2007
"Magda Szabó: Acclaimed author of 'The Door'", The Independent, November 2007
"In Praise of Translation", The Hungarian Quarterly, No. 193, Spring 2009

Poetry

Anthologised in Rhodesian Poetry Nos 11, 12 and 13
Anthologised in 25 Years of South African Poetry, New Coin, Grahamstown, 1980
Individual poems in Two Tone, New Coin, Staple, Iota,''The Interpreter's House, and The New Hungarian Quarterly''

Film

The Door, translation used for English version of 2012 film The Door by István Szabó, starring Helen MirrenEvolution, English language translation of script by Kata Wéber and Kornél Mundruczó