Cold War Women: Female Translators of Russian and Soviet Literature in the Twentieth Century

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Dr. Cathy McAteer (University of Exeter, UK) Professor Brian James Baer (Kent State University, USA)

Cold War Women

Name: Cold War Women
Price: 59.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9798765112243

Female Translators of Russian and Soviet Literature in the Twentieth Century

Dr. Cathy McAteer (University of Exeter, UK), Professor Brian James Baer (Kent State University, USA), Dr. Michelle Woods

$59.99

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
28 May 2026

Translation & interpretation; Literature: history & criticism; Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Gender studies: women

Series: Literatures, Cultures, Translation

Presents original archival research on eight largely unknown émigrée translators whose work during the Cold War actively contributed to and, in some cases, decisively shaped the reception of Russian and Soviet literature throughout the English-speaking world.

In this open access volume, Cathy McAteer profiles female translators of Russian and Soviet literature into English during the last century, focusing on the UK, USSR and US.

Through cultural mediation, most often translation, each woman represents a unique encounter with Cold War politics.

Drawing from extensive archival material, including British Intelligence files, reviews, publications and memoirs, Cold War Women sketches the microhistories of eight complex and occasionally controversial bilingual women: Moura Budberg, Vera Traill, Evelyn Manning, Margaret Wettlin, Violet Dutt, Edith Bone, Olga Carlisle, and Mirra Ginsburg. Many of these women, in addition to their work as translators and publishers of Soviet literature, led complex political lives that brought them under scrutiny for espionage, and even suspected assassination.

Cold War Women explores how literary translation became a uniquely enabling career for each of these women, both in personally challenging gender norms, and in showing translation's soft power for galvanizing propagandist and humanitarian change. The book thus rehabilitates forgotten but influential female translators of Russian literature whose contributions helped to shape the Anglophone reception of Russian and Soviet literature both during and beyond their fraught historical moment.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Exeter.

By: Dr. Cathy McAteer (University of Exeter UK)
Series edited by: Professor Brian James Baer (Kent State University USA), Dr. Michelle Woods
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 214mm, Width: 134mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9798765112243
Series: Literatures, Cultures, Translation
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 28 May 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of FIgures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Out of the Fire: Russophone Émigrée Translator-Mediators to the UK 2. Desperately Seeking Socialism: Ideological British Émigrées in the USSR 3. Shifting Ideologies: Translation in Testing Times 4. A Different Ideology: Russophone Émigrée Translator-Mediators to the US Conclusion: From Cold War Women to Today Bibligography Index

Cathy McAteer is a European Research Council-funded Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Exeter, UK. Her monograph Translating Great Russian Literature: The Penguin Russian Classics (2021) is available in Gold Open Access.

Reviews for Cold War Women: Female Translators of Russian and Soviet Literature in the Twentieth Century

This is an impressive, thoroughly documented, highly readable study of eight women who collectively dedicated decades to bridging the literary, cultural, and political gap between the USSR, the UK, and the United States across the twentieth century … this book is a valuable, even pioneering, addition to the sum of knowledge on translator history from below. * Modern Language Review *