Good things do indeed come to those who wait. After a four-year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, native St. Louisan Jeffrey Zuckerman finally was formally inducted as a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) at a recent special ceremony in New York City.
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres was established by the French minister of culture in 1957 to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to furthering the arts, literature, and culture in France and beyond. Zuckerman, who had been selected for the honor in 2020, was recognized for his achievements as a translator of French literature.
A 2006 graduate of Parkway North High School, Zuckerman earned his bachelor’s degree in English, cum laude, from Yale University. He lives in New York City, where he works as an editor, writer and translator. He started his own translation business in 2013, specializing in translating literary fiction from the French, including books by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat; filmmaking brothers brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne; texts by gay writers Jean Genet, Hervé Guibert and Kevin Lambert; and novels by the Mauritian authors Ananda Devi, Nathacha Appanah, Shenaz Patel and Carl de Souza.
In remarks during the medal presentation ceremony, Judith Roze, deputy cultural counselor of the French Embassy and deputy director of Villa Albertine, said of Zuckerman: “At only 36 years old, your career has already been defined by remarkable achievements and significant literary contributions.
“Through your passion for exploring a wide range of literary perspectives, you help to enrich the anglophone understanding of francophonie, facilitating cross-cultural dialogue and the promotion of literary innovation.”
Zuckerman is no stranger to accolades. His work was recognized previously with the French Voices Grand Prize and was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Prize, an annual award for book-length prose translations from any language into English, and for the French-American Foundation Translation Prize.
The international acclaim that Zuckerman has received for his translation work is laudable by any measure. What makes his success even more remarkable is that he is profoundly deaf. Zuckerman has Usher syndrome type 1F, an inherited disease that causes profound hearing loss from birth and impairs vision beginning in adolescence.
According to the genetic testing website Jscreen.org, Usher 1F is more commonly found in Ashkenazi Jews. From 0.7 to 2.5 in 100 Ashkenazi Jews are carriers of the mutation that causes Usher 1F, making it one of the more commonly carried diseases among Ashkenazim.
In his acceptance speech, Zuckerman acknowledged the challenges of learning to speak not just one, but two languages as an individual born deaf. He credited his parents, Lois and Dave Zuckerman of Creve Coeur, for sending him to Central Institute for the Deaf and Moog Center for Deaf Education to learn to speak English before mainstreaming him into Parkway public schools in third grade. He also became a bar mitzvah and was confirmed at Congregation Shaare Emeth. His parents are members of Shir Hadash Reconstructionist Community.
Zuckerman also paid tribute to Parkway French teachers Lisa Haugen and Sarah Berk for teaching him to speak a language that is extremely difficult to lipread and for making French “not only a language I wanted to learn, but something I wanted to claim just as deeply as I already do English.”
Haugen traveled to New York to attend the ceremony; Berk participated virtually.
Zuckerman’s latest translated work is “Jellyfish Have No Ears” by Adèle Rosenfeld, an autobiographical novel of a woman who is losing her hearing.
Zuckerman will be in St. Louis on Sept. 19 for a book signing at Left Bank Books.
