Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Richard Howard, passed away on Thursday, March 31 at the age of 92. Howard is celebrated for his work as an acclaimed translator who helped introduce readers to a wide range of modern French fiction. His poetry was frequently presented in the style of a dramatic monologue and featured important figures from history and literature that addressed the reader directly. As an esteemed literary creator, his works of poetry, essays, and translations amount to over 200 books published over a fifty-year period.

“I first translated for myself and friends,” Howard told the Center for Translation in 1982. “I had read some books I knew I loved, and I wanted to share them with my friends who couldn’t read French. My friends would come over and I would make them dinner and after dinner I would read aloud. The pleasure in translating these books was equaled, I thought, by the pleasure in communicating them.”

Howard, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, garnered many awards including the Pulitzer Prize (1970) for his collection, Untitled Subjects, the PEN Translation Prize (1976) for his translation of E.M. Cioran’s A Short History of Decay, and the National Book Award (1984) for his translation of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. Howard served as the long-time poetry editor of the Paris Review and was a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Read some of Howard’s poems at The Poetry Foundation and Poets.org.

Sources ABCNews and Columbia School of the Arts