Translator of Jorge Icaza novels - Ecuadorian Literature

Rajna Đurđev

Rajna Đurđev was a Spanish to Serbian translator. In 1964, she translated Ecuador’s most famous novel “Huasipungo” (written in 1934 by Jorge Icaza) as “Indijanska polja” (literally, Indian Fields). In Serbian Jorge Icaza’s name is spelled Horhe Ikasa. Rajna Đurđev is perhaps best known for her Serbian translation of Argentina’s Enesto Sabato’s novel “El túnel” as “Tunel” in 1948.

Silvester Škerl

Silvester Škerl (June 10, 1903 – March 28, 1974) was a Slovenian translator, actor, publisher, editor, and poet. He is known primarily for his translation work, especially after the Second World War, when he translated the works of authors such as Alexandre Dumas, Hans Hellmut Kirst, Miroslav Krleža and Stendhal. In 1954 he published “Mešanci,” a Slovenian translation of the 1937 Ecuadorian novel “Cholos” by Jorge Icaza. Silvester Škerl was a citizen of Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Lucilla Soro

Lucilla Soro is a Spanish to Italian translator. In 2018, she translated the 1934 Ecuadorian novel “Huasipungo” by author Jorge Icaza. This is the novel’s second translation into Italian as Giuseppe Bellini previously translated it in 1961. Other translations by Lucilla Soro include “Per amore della giustizia” by Teresa Forcades, “Migrazioni” by Marc Augé, and “I labirinti della vita” by José Pepe Mujica and Kintto Lucas. She currently lives in Estado Miranda, Venezuela.

Skina Vafa (Скины Вафа)

Skina Habibovna Vafa, or Скина Хабибовна Вафа (Moscow, USSR, February 18, 1928 – October 16, 2005) was a Spanish-to-Russian translator. In 1966, she translated the Ecuadorian novel “El chulla Romero y Flores” by Jorge Icaza into Russian as “Человек из Кито” (literally, The Man from Quito). She graduated from the Moscow Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in 1951. From 1953-1958, she worked in the journal “Soviet literature (in foreign languages),” and from 1958-1963, she worked for Goslitizdat. In 1956, she began publishing her translations of prose by authors such as E. Mendoza, A. Barrera, S. Marg, E. Quiroga, among others. In 1957, she became a member of the Union of Journalists of the USSR, and in 1987, a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR.

Venedikt Vinogradov

Venedikt Stepanovich Vinogradov, or Виноградов В. (July 11, 1925 – August 15, 2009) was a prose writer, university professor, and renowned translator of Spanish-language literature into Russian. In his lifetime, he published more than 100 scientific papers and about 30 literary translations of novels, short stories and collections of short stories by Latin American and Spanish authors. The total circulation of these publications exceeds 2 million copies. In 1976, Vinogradov translated Ecuador’s most famous novel, “Huasipungo” by Jorge Icaza into Russian as “Уасипунго.” In Russian, Jorge Icaza’s name is spelled Хорхе Икаса.

Giuseppe Bellini

Giuseppe Bellini (Isorella, October 23, 1923 – Milan June 19, 2016) was an Italian writer, literary critic, translator, university professor, and a leading Hispanist. He was a pioneer in Hispanic American literature studies in Italy and taught at a number of institutions, including: Bocconi University, University of Parma, University of Venice, and University of Milan. In 1961, Bellini translated his first work of prose, “Huasipungo,” a famous Ecuadorian novel originally written by Jorge Icaza in 1934. Over the course of his career, Bellini translated 81 works, wrote 69 volumes of literary criticism, and wrote over 500 essays and reviews. Bellini also translated works by Ciro Alegría, Pablo Neruda, and Miguel Ángel Asturias, among other Latin American authors.

Tadeusz Jakubowicz

Tadeusz Jakubowicz (1887-1985) was a Polish translator who translated works from English, Russian, French, Italian, and Spanish into Polish. In 1950, he translated the famous Ecuadorian novel “Huasipungo” by Jorge Icaza from Spanish to Polish as “Dławiące dzierżawy.” Among other authors whose works he translated are: Alexandre Dumas, Gustav Flaubert, John Dos Passos, and John Galsworthy.

Věra Prokopová

Věra Prokopová (May 1903 – October 28, 1985) was a Czech translator who translated from the French, Russian and Spanish languages into Czech. In 1963, she translated the Ecuadorian novel “El chulla Romero y Flores” into Czech as “Chlapík z Quita,” (literally, The Lad from Quito). Her translation of Icaza’s work (with an afterword) was published in 1963 by SNKLU (Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury a umění). Adolf Born designed the book’s dust jacket.

Vlaicu Bârna

Vlaicu Bârna (1913 – 1999) was an award-wining Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian poet. In 1965 he made a Romanian translation of the Ecuadorian novel “Huairapamuchcas” by Jorge Icaza as “Copiii vîntului,” (literally, “Children of the Wind”). Other authors he translated include Adam Mickiewicz, Heinrich Heine and Victor Hugo. He won the Ion Pavelescu Prize for sonnets in 1934 and the Romanian Academy’s Mihai Eminescu Prize in 1977. He wrote two historical novels for young people: Romanul Caterinei Varga (1961) and Când era Horia împărat (1962).

Mervyn Savill

Mervyn Savill was a British translator, writer, and editor. During his most productive period (from the 1940s to the 1960s), he translated more than 100 books for various publishers into English from German, French, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Spanish. Savill translated the famous Ecuadorian novel “Huasipungo” by Jorge Icaza into English in 1952, and it was published in 1962 by Dennis Dobson Ltd, London. His translation was based on the original 1934 publication of the book. His other accomplishments as a translator include being the first to bring German Nobel laureates Herman Hesse and Heinrich Böll to the English public.

József Füsi

József Füsi, born József Horváth (Hajmáskér, April 2, 1909 – Budapest, August 10, 1960) was a Hungarian writer, playwright, literary translator, and teacher. In 1949, he translated the novel “Huasipungo,” by Ecuador’s Jorge Icaza into Hungarian as “Indián átok” (literally, Indian Curse). For ten years from 1935, he was a teacher at the capital’s Italian secondary school, and until 1947, acting director. After that, he was acting director of the Vígszínház for a year, as well as dramaturg-lecturer. Between 1954 and 1957 he was a member of the military writing group. His plays appeared on the radio in the 1950’s. His most notable translations include Giovanni Boccaccio’s Life of Dante and Benvenuto Cellini’s Autobiography.

Tibor Kobáň

Tibor Kobáň (1912-1996) was a Spanish-to-Slovak translator who in 1963 translated “En las calles,” a novel by Ecuador’s Jorge Icaza, as “Na uliciach” (literally, On The Streets). Self taught in Spanish and a lover of literature in Romance languages, in 1948 Kobáň created the first Spanish-to-Slovak translations of Latin American works. They were the novels “Miércoles santo” [Defilé hriechu] and “La noche toca a su fin” [Noc už pominula] by Manuel Gálvez and “El camino de las llamas” [Cesta lám] by Hugo Wast, well-known Argentinian writers of that time.

Barbara Pregelj

Barbara Pregelj (April 12, 1970) is a Slovenian writer, editor, scholar of Spanish-language literature, researcher, translator, cultural promoter, and university professor. She’s the author of more than 20 scientific articles and 2 books, and has also translated over 40 books from Spanish to Slovenian. In 2001 she translated the Ecuadorian novel, “Huairapamuchcas,” by Jorge Icaza into Slovenian as “Huairapamuške: sinovi vetra” She has organized and coordinated many visits by foreign authors in Slovenia, along with visits by Slovenian authors to Spain, and several international symposia. She regularly presents papers at conferences, symposia and roundtables, both in Slovenia and abroad.

Georges Pillement

Georges Pillement (March 23, 1898 — April, 14 1984) was a French writer, translator, Spanish and Hispano-American literature scholar, author of books on art and tourism, and photographer. In 1938, he translated “Huasipungo,” Ecuador’s most famous novel (written in 1934 by Jorge Icaza) into French as “La Fosse aux Indiens” (literally, The Indian Pit). It was the first time “Huasipungo” was translated into another language (it was eventually translated into over 40 languages by other translators, including Russian, Chinese, and English). Moreover, in 1945 he published a French anthology of Ecuadorian short stories entitled “Gens de l’Equateur,” which contained stories by José de la Cuadra, Gil Gilbert, Jorge Icaza, Gallegos Lara, A. Malta, H. Salvador. In his illustrious career, Georges Pillement won the Prix des Deux Magots for his novel “Plaisir d’amour” in 1937, and the French Academy’s Prix Louis Barthou in 1964 and the Prix Georges Dupau in 1975.

Vadim Khazin (Вадим Хазін)

Vadim Khazin, or Вадим Хазін (Kyiv, Ukraine, April 2, 1937) is a Ukrainian translator and a geologist (PhD) who has lived in the United States since 1992. In 1967, he translated Jorge Icaza’s novel “El Chulla Romero y Flores” into Ukrainian as “Лихі пригоди Ромеро-і-Флореса” [literally, The Misadventures of Romero y Flores]. He knows various languages and has translated several works from English, Spanish, Italian and Polish to Ukrainian. He is a certified member of the American Association of Translators, where he initiated the creation of the English-Ukrainian certification of translators and until 2016 headed the relevant section of examiners. Now he heads the English-Russian certification section. He lives and works in New Jersey, USA.