María Kodama
Kodama in 2013
Born
María Kodama Schweizer

(1937-03-10)10 March 1937
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died26 March 2023(2023-03-26) (aged 86)
Vicente López, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Occupation(s)Writer, translator

María Kodama Schweizer (10 March 1937 – 26 March 2023) was an Argentine writer and translator. The widow of author Jorge Luis Borges, she was the sole owner of his estate after his death in 1986. Borges had bequeathed to Kodama his rights as author in a will written in 1979, when she was his literary secretary, and bequeathed to her his whole estate in 1985. They were married in 1986, shortly before Borges' death.[1]

Biography

Kodama was the daughter of an Argentine mother of Swiss-German, English and Spanish descent and a Japanese father.[2] She met Borges when she was a student, at one of his lectures in Buenos Aires on Icelandic literature.

After the death in 1975 of Borges's ninety-nine-year-old mother, Leonor Acevedo, with whom he had lived all his life, Kodama became Borges’s literary secretary and had the opportunity—at the invitation of Borges's caretaker, "Fanny"—to assist him as a blind old man in his frequent travels abroad during his later years, when he received many invitations by institutions from around the world. Kodama helped Borges write, as he had lost his sight. She collaborated with him in Breve antología anglosajona (1978) and Atlas (1984, an account of their travels together) and in the translation of the Younger Edda by Snorri Sturluson.

Kodama (right) with author Alejandro Pose Mayayo, 2017

Kodama married Borges through representatives in a civil proceeding in Paraguay on 26 April 1986.[3] This was a common practice for Argentines wishing to circumvent the restrictions on divorce in their country at the time, and Borges was already married once but for many years estranged from his first wife. At the time of the wedding, Borges was terminally ill and died of cancer in Geneva, Switzerland, on 14 June 1986.[4]

Kodama was president of the Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges, which she founded in Buenos Aires in 1988.[5]

After Borges's death, Kodama renegotiated the English translation rights of his works. In particular, she terminated a longstanding agreement between Borges and the translator Norman Thomas di Giovanni under which royalties for a number of translations on which they collaborated were divided equally between author and translator. New translations by Andrew Hurley were commissioned and published to replace the di Giovanni translations, which were allowed to go out of print.[6]

Kodama's assertive administration of the Borges estate also resulted in a bitter dispute with the French publisher Gallimard regarding the republication of the complete works of Borges in French, with Pierre Assouline in Le Nouvel Observateur (August 2006) calling her "an obstacle to the dissemination of the works of Borges". Kodama took legal action against Assouline, considering the remark unjustified and defamatory, asking for a symbolic compensation of one euro.[7][8][9]

Kodama died on 26 March 2023 at the age of 86, in Vicente López, Greater Buenos Aires.[10][11]

Bibliography

  • Kodama, María (2020). Relatos. Alessandro Kokocinski, Editorial Lumen (Primera edición: marzo de 2020 ed.). Barcelona. ISBN 978-84-264-0749-8. OCLC 1198250455.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Kodama, María (2016). Homenaje a Borges (Primera edición ed.). Barcelona. ISBN 978-84-264-0410-7. OCLC 968155827.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

References

  1. ↑ Who is Maria Kodama - The widow, the chosen, the guardian. Archived 13 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine Biographical article on Kodama in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, 7 October 2006 (in Spanish).
  2. ↑ Pérez Bergliaffa, Mercedes (16 June 2017). "Kodama y sus amores: Japón y Borges" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 22 November 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  3. ↑ Ares, Carlos (14 May 1986). "María Kodama". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  4. ↑ Williamson, Edwin (2004). Borges: A Life. Viking. p. 490. ISBN 0-670-88579-7.
  5. ↑ "Se entregan los premios 2022 de la Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges". Infobae (in Spanish). 1 December 2022. Archived from the original on 29 November 2022. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  6. ↑ "Jorge Luis Borges's lost translations | Huw Nesbitt". TheGuardian.com. 19 February 2010. Archived from the original on 7 January 2017. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  7. ↑ "María Kodama demanda a un periodista francés por difamación y reclama nada más que 1 euro". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2011.
  8. ↑ "Se suspendió un juicio por obras de Borges: Reacción de Kodama". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2011.
  9. ↑ (in Spanish) Octavi Martí, Kodama frente a Borges, El País (Madrid), Edición Impresa, 16 August 2006. Abstract online Archived 27 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine; full text accessible online by subscription only.
  10. ↑ La Nación (26 March 2023). "Murió María Kodama, viuda de Jorge Luis Borges" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  11. ↑ El Mundo (26 March 2023). "Muere Maria Kodama, viuda y heredera universal de Jorge Luis Borges". España. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
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