Louise Varèse

Louise Varèse (20 November 1890 – 1 July 1989)^[1] was an American translator of French literature.

She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as Louise McCutcheon. Her first husband was poet and literary editor Allen Norton and the couple had one son in 1912; they separated in 1916 and divorced in 1920. A contributor to the Dadaist magazine The Blind Man,^[2] she is a likely candidate for the unknown friend who, as Marcel Duchamp claimed, sent him in 1917 the urinal that became the sculpture Fountain. From 1922 until his death in 1965 she was married to composer Edgard Varèse; they had a daughter, Sylvia (1930–1974).

Varèse translated poetry and other works by Charles Baudelaire, Julien Gracq, Saint-John Perse, Marcel Proust, Arthur Rimbaud, Georges Simenon, Stendhal.^[3] In 1956, she translated the section "The Great Improvisation" from Adam Mickiewicz's poetic drama Dziady. She published in 1972 Edgar Varèse's biography, Varèse: A Looking-Glass Diary.

She was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1969.

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