Career
Mitchell’s Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke has been called “the most beautiful group of poetic translations the twentieth century has produced.” William Arrowsmith said that his Sonnets to Orpheus “instantly makes every other rendering obsolete.” His Book of Job has been called “magnificent.” His bestselling Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, and Gilgamesh—which are not translations from the original text, but rather poetic interpretations that use existing translations into Western languages as their starting point—have also been highly praised by critics, scholars, and common readers.
Gilgamesh was Editor's Choice of The New York Times Book Review, was selected as the Book Sense 2004 Highlight for Poetry, was a finalist for the first annual Quill Award in poetry, and was also featured as a holiday recommendation on NPR’s "All Things Considered". Mr. Mitchell is a two-time winner of the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
He has also written a book of poems, Parables and Portraits, and two books of fiction, Meetings with the Archangel and The Frog Prince.
His books for young readers include The Wishing Bone, winner of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award as the best book of poetry for children published in the United States in 2003. Jesus: What He Really Said and Did was chosen by the American Library Association's Booklist as one of the top ten religious books for children in 2002. His rendition of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Nightingale" was chosen a Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2002, New York Public Library Children's Books: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, New England Book Show-Juvenile Category Winner, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award Winner, and The National Council of Teachers of English 2002 Notable Children's Books.
He is coauthor of two of his wife Byron Katie’s bestselling books: Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy.
In 2011, Mitchell published a new verse translation of Homer's Iliad and is currently at work on the Odyssey.
Read more about this topic: Stephen Mitchell (translator)
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