David Rubin (author)

David (George) Rubin (March 27, 1924 - February 2, 2008) was an American novelist and translator. He is most well known for his translations of the Indian novelist and essayist Munshi Premchand and the Indian poet and novelist Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'.

Serving in World War II as a cryptographer, Rubin returned to America to begin a life in academia. He spent a large portion of his career at Sarah Lawrence College. Besides his translation work, he was an accomplished novelist himself. His first novel, The Greater Darkness, published in 1963, won the British Authors’ Club award for that year’s best first novel.

While he was a skillful writer, linguistics and music were his twin passions. Rubin spoke English and French as a child, then mastered Spanish, Italian, German, Hindi-Urdu and Nepali, and dabbled in Swedish and Russian.

Rubin died on February 2, 2008, from a stroke. He was 83 years old. A large portion of his estate was donated to charities, and his voluminous body of work is currently being digitally archived and published in e-books.

Rubin was born on March 27, 1924, in Willimantic, Connecticut, to a French-Canadian mother, Angel Couchon, and Max George Rubin. His father served as an administrator at the Mansfield Training School in Mansfield, Connecticut.

Rubin was raised in a bilingual household; his parents spoke French and English. He was also raised with two religions, most notably Catholicism. He did not remain religious, though conflicts of faith, mysticism, and reason played an important part in much of his fiction.

During World War II, Rubin served in the North African theater of operations during 1943–46. Stationed in the Azores, he helped decode Nazi U-boat messages. After returning from service, Rubin continued his education at the University of Connecticut (BA, 1947), Brown (MA, 1948) and Columbia (PhD in Comparative Literature, 1954).

His involvement with music, also significant throughout his novels, was fostered by study of the violin at seven. Later in life the classical guitar became his instrument of choice. His first published writing consisted of articles on music, in The Music Review (UK), Chord, and Discord, as well as classical music liner notes for Vox, Epic, RCA Victor, and Mercury. He began his teaching career at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in 1952.

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