John DuVal

John Tabb DuVal is an award-winning translator of Old French, Modern French, Italian, Romanesco, and Italian and has been a professor of English and Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas since 1982. Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1940, to Thaddeus Ernest DuVal and Helene Dupont Cau, DuVal grew up in Jenkintown, a suburb of Philadelphia. He holds an A.B. in English from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a Master of Arts in English from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master's in French, a Master of Fine Arts in Translation, and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Arkansas. Until 2008 DuVal directed the University's acclaimed Program in Literary Translation.^[1] Known for his numerous entertaining keynote addresses on translation, he is also the author of thirteen books of translation, and his original poems and articles on translation have been published and republished widely. DuVal's teaching areas of expertise include Translation Theory and Practice; Creative Writing; Comparative Literature; World Sonnet; Dante; Medieval Literature; and Epic Poetry. DuVal was named Fulbright College Visiting Fellow to Wolfson College of Cambridge University (UK) for the year 2010-2011 to complete his translation of the French epic, The Song of Roland.

Selected honors and awards

2008 Special Panel honoring the work of Juliane Hause, Marilyn Gaddis-Rose, and John DuVal, Keynote Speakers at the World Conference on Translation and Globalism, Abu Dhabi, November 21.

2006 Raissiz/de Palchi Award for best book of translations from Italy (Tales of Trilussa), awarded by the Academy of American Poets.

2005 Grant from the District of Columbia Commission on Arts and Humanities for Banishèd productions staged readings of three translations from From Adam to Adam ("The Play of Adam," "Greenwood Follies" and "The Miracle of Theophile"), Arena Stage, Washington, D.C., 17 October.

2005 Provost’s Visiting Scholar, University of Montana, 19–23 September.

2005 “Marilyn Gaddis Rose Keynote Speaker” for the Literary Division of the American Translators Association, Seattle, November.

1999 Major Award from the National Endowment of the Arts for translation of Adam le Bossu's "Greenwood Follies" ("Jeu de la feuillée").

1996-1998 Executive Council, American Literary Translators Association.

1992 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award for The Discovery of America, awarded by the Academy of American Poets.

1992 University of Arkansas Board of Regents Citation for Outstanding Service.

1982 Cuckolds, Clerics, and Countrymen, a Choice magazine Outstanding Academic Book of the Year.

Selected publications

The Song of Roland, tr. from Old French. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishers, 2012.

Interpreting a Continent: Voices from Colonial America,(with Kathleen DuVal), Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, March, 2009.

From Adam to Adam: Seven Old French Plays,(with Raymond Eichmann), Asheville, NC: Pegasus Paperbooks, 2005.

Oblivion and Stone: A Selection of Contemporary Bolivian Poetry and Fiction (ed. Sandra Reyes, co-translated with Reyes, Gastón Fernández-Torriente, and Kay Pritchett). Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998.

Fabliaux, Fair and Foul (with Raymond Eichmann), Binghampton, NY.: Pegasus Paperbooks of The Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts Society, 1992; reprinted by Pegasus, Asheville, N.C., 1999 and 2008.

The Discovery of America by Cesare Pascarella, tr. from Romanesco. Fayetteville: U.of A. Press, 1991; reprinted, 2006.

Tales of Trilussa by Carlo Alberto Salustri, tr. from Romanesco. Fayetteville: U. of A. Press, 1990; reprinted, 2006.

Long Blues in A Minor by Gerard Herzhaft, tr. from French. Fayetteville: U. of A. Press,1988; reprinted, 2006.

The Fabliaux: The B.N. 837 Manuscript (with R. Eichmann). New York: Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Vol. II, 1986.

The Fabliaux: The B.N. 837 Manuscript (with R. Eichmann). New York: Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Vol. I, 1984.

Cuckolds, Clerics, and Countrymen: Medieval French Fabliaux (with Raymond Eichmann). Fayetteville: U. of A. Press, 1982.

References