Donald Allen

Short Biography

Donald Merriam Allen (Iowa, 1912 – San Francisco, August 29, 2004) was an influential editor, publisher, and translator of contemporary American literature. He is perhaps best known for his project The New American Poetry 1945-1960 (1960), among the several important anthologies of contemporary American innovative writing he made available to the public. Allen began his working life as a Japanese translator within the US military, serving in WWII. After his military service, Allen became an editor at Grove Press, where he worked for sixteen years. He was one of the first translators of the Romanian-French Absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco, and Allen's 1958 volume Four Plays of Eugène Ionesco helped to introduce the playwright to American audiences in the 1960's.