Muir, Willa
Entry updated 13 May 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1890-1970) Scottish poet, translator and author, most of whose translations, like those of Franz Kafka, were done in collaboration with her husband Edwin Muir [who see for further details]; she also published some solo translations as by Agnes Neill Scott. It has been plausibly argued that she was the senior figure in the Muirs' career as translators, certainly on grounds of technical facility. On the basis of their non-collaborative writings in English, however, Edwin Muir seems to have been the more accomplished stylist.
Of Muir's fiction, The Usurpers (written circa 1950; 2024) describes a failed Utopia located in the imaginary land of Slavomania, a Satire whose main target seems to be the Communist regime in post-War Czechoslovakia. Her memoirs in various forms [not listed here] are of substantial interest. [JC]
Willa Muir
born Montrose, Angus: 13 March 1890
died Dunoon, Scotland: 22 May 1970
works (highly selected)
- The Usurpers (London: Colenso Books, 2024) [pb/]
see also Austria; Gollancz; Gerhart Hauptmann
about the author
- Margery Palmer McCulloch. Edwin and Willa Muir: A Literary Marriage (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2024) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
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