Manya Harari


Manya Harari was a British translator of Russian literature and the co-founder of Harvill Press. Her best-known work is the translation of Boris Pasternak's epic novel Doctor Zhivago, which she co-translated with Max Hayward. She also translated works by Konstantin Paustovsky, Andrey Sinyavsky, Ilya Ehrenburg and Evgenia Ginzburg, among others.

Early life

Born in the Russian Empire, as the fourth child and youngest daughter of Jewish financier Grigori Benenson and Sophie Goldberg, she migrated in 1914 with her family to London from Germany, where they had been visiting. She had three siblings, an older brother Jacob who died in a German concentration camp during the First World War, and two sisters, Flora Solomon and Fira Benenson who became a leading American dress designer.

Education

She was educated at Malvern Girls College and at Bedford College, London, where she read history, graduating in 1924.
In 1946 she co-founded the Harvill Press with Marjorie Villiers.

Selected books

Translations

  • Involuntary Journey to Siberia by Andrei Amalrik
  • The Thaw by Ilya Ehrenburg
  • Into the Whirlwind by Evgenia Ginzburg
  • The Demonstration in Pushkin Square by Pavel Litvinov
  • The Decline of Wisdom by Gabriel Marcel
  • The Philosophy of Exisentialism by Gabriel Marcel
  • An Essay in Autobiography by Boris Pasternak
  • Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
  • The Blind Beauty: A Play by Boris Pasternak
  • Story of a Life by Konstantin Paustovsky
  • Unguarded Thoughts by Andrey Sinyavsky
  • The Makepeace Experiment by Abram Tertz

    Autobiography

  • ''Memoirs 1906-1969''

    Personal life

In Paris in 1925 Manya Benenson married Ralph Andrew Harari, a merchant banker, art scholar and collector, son of Sir Victor Harari Pasha and Emma Aghion, leading members of Egypt's Anglo-Jewish community. They had met in Palestine earlier that year. They initially lived in Cairo where Manya studied the poor living conditions. In 1932, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
The couple later settled in London and were known for their hospitality at their London home 32 Catherine Place, Westminster. The couple had one son, Michael Harari, born in England in 1928, who later became a psychiatrist.
Manya Harari died on 24 September 1969 and was buried with her husband at East Finchley Cemetery and Crematorium.