Ranjit Bolt

Ranjit Bolt OBE (born 1959) is a British playwright and translator. He was born in Manchester of Anglo-Indian parents and is the nephew of playwright and screen-writer Robert Bolt.Programme notes for "The Grouch", West Yorkshire Playhouse February 2008] [cite web | author=Indiana University Bloomington| title= Ranjit Bolt, the translator/adaptor, and Aristophanes, the comic playwright | url= http://www.indiana.edu/~thtr/2002/lysistrata/aristophanes_and_bolt.html | accessdate=2008-02-23] cite web | url=http://www.rsc.org.uk/downloads/pdfs/ranjit_bolt_qa.pdf |title= Q & A with Ranjit Bolt | accessdate=2008-02-23 | author=Royal Shakespeare Company] His father is literary critic Sydney Bolt, author of several books including "A preface to James Joyce", and his mother has worked as a teacher of English. Bolt was educated at The Perse School and Oxford University, and worked as a stockbroker for eight years but "I was desperate to escape, any escape route would have done, and translating turned out to be the one". As well as his plays he has published a novel in verse, "Losing it" [cite news|last=Forbes | first=Peter | title=Latin Lovers [review of "Losing it"] | publication = The Guardian | date=2001-06-16|accessdate=2008-02-23] and a verse translation for children of the fables of La Fontaine, "The Hare and the Tortoise". He was awarded the OBE in 2003 for services to literature.

Asked about his approach to translating plays, he has said: cquote|I try to follow the rule laid down by perhaps the greatest translator of all, John Dryden, who maintained that a translator should – and I paraphrase – make the version as entertaining as possible, while at the same time remaining as faithful as possible to the spirit of the original.

He has translated many classic plays into English, most of them into verse. Among his works are:
* "The Liar" (1989) from "Le Menteur" by Pierre Corneille
*"The Illusion" (1990) from "L'Illusion Comique" by Pierre Corneille
*"The Real Don Juan" (1990) from "Don Juan Tenorio" by José Zorrilla y Moral
*"Tartuffe" (1991 and 2002) from the play by Molière
*"Lysistrata" (1993) from the play by Aristophanes
*"The Venetian Twins" (1993) from the play by Carlo Goldoni
*"Le Cid" (1994) from the play by Pierre Corneille
*"The Miser" (1995) from "L'Avare" by Molière
*"The Oedipus Plays" (1996)
*"The Art of Seduction" (1997) from "La Double Inconstance" by Pierre Marivaux
*"Cyrano de Bergerac" (1995) from the play by Edmond Rostand
*"The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" (2005) from the play by Bertolt Brecht
*"The Marriage of Figaro" (2006) from the play by Pierre Beaumarchais
*"Merry Wives - The Musical" (2006) from "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare
*"Mirandolina" (2006) from the play by Carlo Goldoni
*"The Grouch" (2008) from "Le Misanthrope" by Molière

*"Waltz of the Toreadors" from the play by Jean Anouilh
*"Believe it or not" from "Le Puff" by Eugène Scribe
*"George Dandin" from the play by Molière
*"Hercules" from the work by Seneca
*"The Idiot" from " L'Étourdi" by Molière
*"Scapin" from "Les Fourberies de Scapin" by Molière
*"The School for Wives" from the play by Molière
*"The Sisterhood" from a play by Molière

*
*cite book| last=Bolt | first=Ranjit | title=The hare and the Tortoise and other fables of La Fontaine | isbn=1905236530 | date=2006 | publisher=Barefoot Books | others=Giselle Potter (illustrator)

References

External links

* [http://www.ranjitbolt.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/bolt-ranjit.html Ranjit Bolt on Doollee.com The Playwrights' Database]