Worldwise (Édouard Roditi's Twentieth Century)

Critic, translator, essayist, and gay man, Édouard Roditi (1910–1992) was a singular witness to the twentieth century. His writings over six decades are a unique account of a life lived at the flashpoints of history and at the margins of society, providing acute and unsparing observations of literature and political events.

Worldwise brings together a wide range of Roditi’s writings, renewing appreciation for the polyglot writer. With editors offering insightful background information on Roditi – who was born in Paris and had Sephardic Jewish ancestors of Greek, Spanish, and Italian origin on his father’s side and Catholic and Ashkenazi Jewish connections on his mother’s – the book covers topics as diverse as gay life, Sephardic Judaism, and postwar Europe. A published surrealist poet by eighteen, Roditi would become an interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, a highly regarded literary translator, and a perceptive social analyst whose outspoken views irritated American, Soviet, and French authorities by turns. Roditi had a knack for spotting promising minds and created literary connections across continents and languages over a long, eclectic, and creative lifetime.

With accounts of his family history and childhood, essays on writers such as Hart Crane and André Breton, and forays into literary, artistic, and political subcultures between the world wars, Worldwise highlights the crucial role Roditi played as a cultural mediator and broker, while revealing his trenchant views on art and history in the twentieth century, views that remain salient and enduring in our time.