[Gregory Dowling]

I have just picked up a second-hand copy of a translation of Eugene Onegin by Babette Deutsch. It's a Penguin which came out as a tie-in with a film entitled Onegin starring Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler (1999), which I admit I never heard of at the time, and the edition gives no information whatsoever on the translator or translation, other than specifying that it was first published in 1964. Not so long ago in a thread on Translation started by Andrew Frisardi I stated in brazen, know-it-all fashion that Charles Johnston's translation (also published by Penguin) was the first in English to maintain the stanza form and I now see that I was wrong. I'm writing away from home and from my books, so I can't compare the two translations stanza by stanza, but I have to say that Deutsch's looks pretty good, despite the occasional archaism and inversion. I've done a little Googling but can't find any detailed information on Deutsch as a poet. I wonder if anyone knows her work at all.