Marie Canavaggia, (March 1896 – September 30, 1976) was a professional French translator and, for 25 years, the literary secretary of the writer and pamphleteer Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
She was the oldest of three daughters; her younger sisters were Jeanne (who became noted abstract painter) and Renée (who worked as a translator – sometimes with Marie – and became an astrophysicist).
Inspired to read her favorite authors in their native language, Marie chose to study English and Italian and found a liking for translation.
[1] Returning to Nîmes, she translated Born in Exile by George Gissing, finishing in late 1929 or early 1930, then seeking an editor for the book.
According to Julie Arsenault, her choices reveal a notable taste, for example Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, and authors such as Mario Soldati, Guido Piovene, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, Mary Webb and John Cowper Powys.
Her role and influence in France and in French-speaking countries gave French readers the opportunity to discover key texts of English-language literatures.
She received a first version of the text, addressed remarks to Céline, questioning the twists, audacious grammar and neologisms: "If he decided to change a word," she said, "He did not just replace it with another one.
[5] In 1945, she met the painter Jean Dubuffet, a great admirer of Céline (who was then in exile in Denmark after his vocal support of the Axis powers).
He became furious in 1949 when he learned that the drafts of Journey at the End of the Night were entrusted to a house proof reader: "I've been made aware by Marie of this sabotage of commas and I am revolted, outraged, quivering.
[11] In 1961, shortly before his death, when he struggled to get his work in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, he reminded Gallimard: "A proof reader, it goes without saying, can't be more qualified than Marie Canavaggia.
As of that date, she no longer had access to the manuscripts and played no role in the development of posthumous texts, in particular that of Rigodon, which was transcribed by André Damien,[14] then by François Gibault and Lucette Destouches,[15][16] and finally by Henri Godard during inclusion in la Pléiade.