Maria Spivak: biography, personal life, family, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Maria Spivak is known to a wide range of readers for the controversial and heatedly discussed translation of the Harry Potter series of books, which is actively discussed on Internet forums to this day. And at the time of release, he literally divided fans of the cult fantasy novel into two camps.

What else can you remember about the life and work of the translator?

Biography of Maria Spivak

Maria Viktorovna Spivak was born in Moscow on October 26, 1962. Even as a child, she knew that she wanted to be a translator. I read a lot and learned English early. Fate decreed otherwise: Maria Spivak graduated from one of the technical universities and found a job in her engineering and mathematics speci alty.

Return to the path chosen in childhood helped the crisis of the 90s. In 1998, the future writer loses her job and instead of searching for a new one, she decides to try her hand at translation.

The first translations of Maria Spivak were made exclusively for a narrow circle of acquaintances. According to the author, for "Harry Potter" sheaddressed before the official version of the first book in Russian was published. Her translation has gained wide popularity on the Internet, with readers repeatedly asking for more chapters of the story about the boy who lived.

After the complete series of "Harry Potter" in Spivak's version was printed, the translator received a huge amount of critical feedback. Several times she received letters from aggressive fans of the work with insults and threats. According to close people, this was one of the reasons for the writer's early departure from life - she died of a serious illness at the age of 55.

Family

Translator Maria Spivak was born into an intelligent and prosperous family. Parents considered it important to give their daughter a good education. She studied German at a language school, and English on her own and in individual lessons, which was somewhat atypical in the USSR during her childhood, given the current political situation.

Family life

Little is known about Maria Spivak's personal life. She was married. It was her husband who first began to upload translations of "Harry Potter" to the Web, which Spivak originally wrote only for friends, wanting to share her impressions of a wonderful book with them.

In 2009, the translator divorced her husband, which was not easy for her.

Creativity

Two novels by Maria Spivak have been published: "The Year of the Black Moon", written after a hard divorce from her husband, and A World Elsewhere, published in English.

OnSpivak's account of ten translations of Rowling's books:

• "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone";
• "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets";
• "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban";
• "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire";
• "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix";
• "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince";
• "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows";
• "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them";
• "Quidditch from Antiquity to the Present";
• "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child".

And over 20 translations of other works by British authors.

Maria Spivak was awarded the "Unicorn and Lion" award.

Fame

Some time after Maria Spivak's translation of the book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" appeared on the Internet, the owners of the rights to the text contacted the woman, banning the publication. However, fans reacted instantly by posting the work on another site and under a different name. This is how the comic pseudonym of Maria Spivak appeared - Em. Tasamaya.

Ten years later, when the publishing house "Rosmen" transferred the rights to publish the saga to "Makhaon", Spivak was approached with an offer to purchase her translations for a decent fee.

Probably Spivak could not even imagine how much controversy will unfold around her work.

Criticism

The translation, which was initially popular on the Web, was expecting a flurrycritics after being exposed to a huge audience of book fans.

It is worth noting that fans have always had a lot of complaints about the translation of M. D. Litvinova, published by Rosman, the main of which is the insufficiently well-translated style and style of J. K. Rolling.

In Maria Spivak's work, readers were most dissatisfied with the translation of proper names.

According to the rules, names and titles should be left unchanged as in the original or adapted if, from the point of view of the Russian language, they turn out to be dissonant. But even those names that Spivak did not translate into Russian do not sound exactly as required by the rules of reading.

For example, Dumbledore became Dumbledore, although the English letter 'u' usually stands for the 'a' sound, and there is no soft sign between two consonants in English. Mr and Mrs Dursley turned out to be Dursley (original Dursley).

The situation was even more difficult with those names that were translated. Much has been said about the comic effect that is created when Oliver Wood is replaced with Oliver Tree and Bathilda Bagshot is replaced with Bathilda Beetle.

Well, the proper names proposed by Maria Spivak, which are designed to characterize the character in a certain way and were chosen only in consonance with the original ones, remained completely unaccepted by the audience. So, a huge outrage was caused by the name of Severus Snape, who is called Villainous Snape. This name has very little to do with the English version and is not consistent with the character of the character, whodoes not at all personify evil, but is extremely contradictory and ambiguous, moreover, a beloved hero by many.

Controversy flared up even more after an interview with a writer who says that her translations are better in quality than those published by Rosman. She emphasizes that translating a book is not just about adapting titles and encourages readers to pay attention to the rest of the text.

However, readers have quite a lot of complaints. First of all, many are annoyed by the frequent and usually inappropriate use of jargon. For example, Mr. Dursley calls the wizarding community a gop company, and Hagrid, in the presence of children, says that Filch is a "bastard".

Corrosive Potter fans continue to find spelling, grammatical, stylistic and translation errors in Makhaon books.

Those who remember the first translations of Maria Spivak posted on the Web say that their quality was much better before the editorial changes were made (Makhaon editor - A. Gryzunova). Spivak herself was very reserved in commenting on these changes, noting that they are inevitable when editing.

Even after the translator's death, discussions continue. Fans find new advantages and disadvantages of Spivak's text, actively comparing it with Rosman's. One way or another, currently Maria Spivak is the author of the only officially published translation of the famous saga.