Michael Leverson Meyer (11 June 1921 – 3 August 2000) was an English translator, biographer, journalist and dramatist who specialised in Scandinavian literature.
[1] Initially a conscientious objector during World War II, he served as a civilian with Britain's Bomber Command for three years.
"[2] Meyer wrote one novel The End Of The Corridor and several original plays for stage and radio including The Ortolan produced in 1953 with Maggie Smith and in 1967 with Helen Mirren, Lunatic and Lover about Strindberg’s three lovers which won an Edinburgh Fringe First in 1978, Meeting in Rome was a fictional account of a meeting between Ibsen and Strindberg starring Kenneth Haigh produced for BBC Radio 4, and an adaptation of George Gissing’s The Odd Women was produced by Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre in 1992.
[1] His memoir Not Prince Hamlet published in 1989, was described by David Mamet as ‘Beautifully written, a delight to read’, and by Simon Callow as "A very special perspective and theatre and literary life".
Braham Murray wrote in Meyer's Guardian obituary that he was "the greatest translator of Ibsen and Strindberg into English there has ever been" even superior to William Archer.