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Dear friend since 1943 or 4 saw off & on through the years. Painted at their home in Vt. in 1968 or 9-

THE NEW YORK TIMES.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1980

[[IMAGE]]
1954
Richard Winston

Richard Winston, 62, Translator Of Books From German, Is Dead

By C. GERALD FRASER

Richard Winston, who translated, in partnership with his wife, Clara, the work of Thomas Mann, Martin Buber, Frederich Duerrenmatt, Hermann Hessem Erich Maria Remargue, Albert Schweitzer, Franz Kafka and Albert Speer, among others, died Dec. 22 of pulmonary cancer in Brattleboro (Vt.) Memorial Hospital.  He was 62 years old old and lived in Brattleboro.
The Winstons were pre-eminent German translators in the United States.  In all, they translated more than 150 major books and many smaller works.  Mr. Winston worked principally turning German prose into English prose.  But he also translated Dutch, French, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish to English.
Mr. Winston also wrote two biographical works, "Charlemagne: From the Hammer to the Cross" (1954) and "Thomas Beckett" (1967).  For the last 10 years, he had been working on a biography of Thomas Mann, one volume of which is complete.  He and his wife translated "Letters of Thomas Mann: 1889-1955."
Mr. Winston also translated many juvenile books, such as "The Ark" and "Rowan Farm," by Margot Benary-Isbert, and he took pride in being able to work with anything from archeology to zoology.
He and his wife translated, for example, "The March of Archaeology" by C.W. Cernan; "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" by C.G. Jung; "And there was Light: The Discovery of the Universe" by Rudolf Thiel, "The Cross of Iron" by Willi Heinrich and "The Sex Life of Animals" by Herbert Wendt.
Other work the Winstons translated included: :The Deputy" by Rolf Hochhuth and two books by Albert Speer, "Inside the Third Reich" and "Spandau: The Secret Diaries."
Mr. Winston was head of the literary committee of the American Translators Association.  He won the association's gold medal, the P.E.N. prize for translation and the National Book Award for translation.
Mrs. Winston said yesterday she and her husband believed that translating was an interpretive art of which three quarters was pure intuition.  Not only is knowledge of the language vital, but sensitivity to language and a literary flair are essential, she said.
With a good writer, Mrs. Winston said, the word was the thought, and with good writers they could be "devoutly faithful."  With the poorer writer, the weaknesses showed up, she said, and "frequently we had to say it better that they said it."  "We used our discretion; we helped them along.
"You need stamina.  You begin a book and it goes on and on; you don't always admire it, but you have to be careful about every detail."
Working together, the Winstons avoided the occupational loneliness associated with the job.  "The book becomes more alive because we are both engaged in it," Mrs. Wilson said.  "We talked about it while working on it.  We were both giving full attention to it."
Mr. Winston was born in New York and graduated from Brooklyn College, where he studied German, which was his passion from the very start.  In the later 1930's, there were many German exiles in New York, and Mr. Winston started translating for them.  "We worked on everything from the sublime to the ridiculous," Mrs. Winston said, "with little hope of payment."
During World War II, Mr. Winston was a conscientious objector.  He was imprisoned at the Federal penitentiary in Danbury, Conn., and was released to do alternative service a Yale University Hospital, where he worked in the poliomyelitis unit.
Mr. Winston is survived by his wife; two daughters, Krisha Winston-Billingsley of Middletown, Conn,. and Justina Gregory of Northampton, Mass., and three grandchildren.

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