ROZE
(RACHELLE) MISHNUN (b. March 2, 1883)
She was born in the village of
Mishnun (Misniunenai), Kovno district, Lithuania. Her father made a living from a tavern. At age four she had learned Hebrew; one year
later she was reading Russian, and later she mastered the ability to read
German on her own. She studied Tanakh
with a teacher, and quietly she devoured the novels of Bloshteyn and
Shomer. At age six she became severely
ill, and from that point she became deaf and her spoken language impaired. She arrived in the United States at age
fifteen. There she recuperated for
several years from her illness, by day working in a sweatshop and in the
evenings studying English. She read a
great deal and did translations from English into Yiddish which she published
in: Forverts (Forward), Tsayt-gayst (Spirit of the times), Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of
labor), and Idishe arbayter-velt
(Jewish workers’ world). Of her more
important translations, we need note: Hjalmar Bergstrøm, Lingaard
un kompanye (Lynggaard & Co.), a drama in four acts, in Fraye arbeter-shtime (1915-1916) and Karen borneman (Karen Borneman) in Fraye arbeter-shtime (1916); and Serafin
and Joaquín Álvares Quintero’s In a
sheynem frimorgn (On a beautiful morning [original Mañana de Sol (A sunny morning)]), a one-act play, in Fraye arbeter-shtime (May 1919). All of her Yiddish translations were
retranslations from English versions of the works in question.
Source:
Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish
theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934).
Yankev Kahan
No comments:
Post a Comment