Carol Brown Janeway


Carol Janet Brown Janeway was an editor and literary translator into English. She is best known for her translation of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader.

Biography

Carol Janet Brown was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her father Robin Brown was a chartered accountant, while her mother was a director of the Ranfurly Library, specialising in the translation of medieval French and German lyrics. She attended St George's School, Edinburgh and went on to study modern and medieval languages at Girton College, Cambridge. After graduating with a first class degree, she worked at John Farquharson, a literary agency in London.
In 1970 she moved to New York, where she joined the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. She became a senior editor, responsible for purchasing publishing rights from international publishers, and began her parallel career in literary translation, mainly from German.
Among the authors Janeway edited was George MacDonald Fraser. She also published Elsa Morante, Heinrich Böll, Imre Kertész, Thomas Mann and Patrick Süskind.
An early translation by Janeway was Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Her translations of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and Embers by Sandor Marai were lauded.

Personal life

Her first marriage to William H. Janeway was dissolved. Later, she married Erwin Glikes, who died in 1994.

Death

She died of cancer on 3 August 2015, aged 71, in New York City.

Selected translations

From German