Tag: what translators read

Interview | Tim Gutteridge, translator

Tim Gutteridge has been a full-time translator since 1999, and works on a wide range of texts, including literary fiction, theatre, TV scripts, comics, academic articles and corporate communications. His recent translations include The Mountain That Eats Men by Ander Izagirre and the stage plays Jauría (Jordi Casanovas) and Tenant (Paco Gámez). His translation of Crocodile Tears by Mercedes Rosende, is published by Bitter Lemon Press.

Tell us a little bit about yourself
I was born and brought up in Scotland but I live in Cadiz, in the south of Spain, with my teenage kids and my two dogs.

When you were growing up, what books had an impact on you?
I was a big Moomins fan. I can still remember that sensation of disappearing into another world, an odd mixture of the comforting and the disconcerting. Continue reading Interview | Tim Gutteridge, translator

Interview | Charlotte Collins & Ruth Martin | Translator(s) of the Week

The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischvili translated by Ruth Martin & Charlotte Collins, is published by Scribe UK on 14 November, 2019. @the_germanist @cctranslates @ScribeUKbooks

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
RM: I grew up in Cornwall, and did a first degree in English and a PhD in German literature. I’ve been a full-time translator for about eight years now, working on both fiction and non-fiction titles.
CC: I did a degree in English Literature, then went to drama school. I worked in theatre on and off for quite a long time. A schools tour took me to Germany in 1996, where I lived for nine years. I’ve also worked as a radio journalist, and started translating full-time in 2010.

When you were growing up, what books had an impact on you?
RM: My dad used to read the Just So Stories to me when I was quite little; he did the voices of all the animals. I think he enjoyed it as much as I did. Reading aloud to children is one of the best things a parent can do, in my opinion. I loved anything by Roald Dahl, too – he had a big influence on my sense of humour. Saturday was library day in our house and I would read my allocation of books, then my brother’s, then I’d start sneaking books off my parents’ piles and reading them in a tree at the bottom of the garden where I wouldn’t be found for a couple of hours.
CC: I was obsessed with Peter Pan. I was convinced that if I thought beautiful enough thoughts I’d be able to fly, even without fairy dust. My grandmother had to have a serious talk with me because I kept launching myself down the stairs. I had wonderful books – The Chronicles of Narnia, Maria Gripe’s Hugo and Josephine series (translated by Paul Britten Austin), Tom’s Midnight Garden, (I used to play in that garden; a schoolfriend lived in Philippa Pearce’s old house.) I loved Andrew Lang’s coloured fairy books; Yellow and Violet were my favourites. There were a lot of time-slip books, a lot in which a lonely child finds a friend, a lot with absent fathers who miraculously return. I can’t remember who started me off on the Brontës, but I read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre when I was about eight and would nag my poor grandparents to take me to Haworth every summer. Francis Spufford’s memoir The Child that Books Built beautifully explores the way we’re shaped, as children, by the books we read, the way we escape into their worlds. Continue reading Interview | Charlotte Collins & Ruth Martin | Translator(s) of the Week

Interview | Sophie Lewis | Translator of the Week

Sophie Lewis is a London-born writer, editor and translator from French (since 2005) and Portuguese (since 2012). She has translated works by Stendhal, Verne, Marcel Aymé, Violette Leduc, Emmanuelle Pagano, Noémi Lefebvre, João Gilberto Noll and Sheyla Smanioto, among others. She was Senior Editor at indie trade publisher And Other Stories from 2010 to 2016. In 2016 she co-founded Shadow Heroes, a workshop series introducing aspects of translation to GCSE-level students. She is now Managing Editor at the Folio Society. This Tilting World by Colette Fellous, published by Les Fugitives on 16 September, is her latest translation.

Where did you grow up? Have you always lived in London?
I grew up in Islington in North London. I’m happy to call myself a born and bred Londoner, though my parents were not from here, nor were their parents from where they grew up.
I spent my childhood and adolescence in London, and was back and forth between Oxford, Paris and London as a student. My big, very sensible adventure was a move to Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of 2011. My husband got a teaching job there and we took a weekend to decide this was a great plan, despite never having set foot on the continent before. It was a great plan. We stayed for four and a half years. Now we’re back in London we can’t help speculating about making another similar move, though to somewhere as different again. Languages play their part, of course. Continue reading Interview | Sophie Lewis | Translator of the Week

Interview | Nashwa Gowanlock, translator

Meet Nashwa Gowanlock in person at the 10×10 Tour event, Waterstones, Brighton 6.30 p.m. Thursday 4 OCT. Theme: Inside Out: Voices of the Diaspora. With Meike Ziervogel from Peirene Press, chair, and translator Jamie Bulloch (The Last Summer by Ricarda Huch).
Book Tickets

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a British Egyptian born in Kuwait and raised between there and the UK, where I am now based. I was raised bilingual and attended a British school in Kuwait so the transition to England in 1990 following the Iraqi invasion wasn’t too much of a shock, although it was a bit of a culture shock! Most of my extended family live in Egypt and I have a very strong connection to them and the country itself, even though I never really lived there, but visit often. I’ve also lived as an expat in Qatar and Cyprus, when I worked for Al Jazeera and then AFP, but I’m now settled in Suffolk with my husband, stepson and a toddler who keeps me on my toes!
 Continue reading Interview | Nashwa Gowanlock, translator

Interview | Ros Schwartz | Translator of the Week

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I dropped out of university in the early 1970s and ran away to Paris where I spent eight years soaking up the French language and culture. I enrolled at the radical university of Vincennes and did various jobs, from telephone operator on the SNCF enquiries line to picking grapes, milking goats and teaching English in companies. When I came back to the UK in 1981, I found that I was unemployable, so I announced myself as a translator.

When you were growing up, what books had an impact on you?
I lived in a house full of books. My father collected books and had very eclectic tastes. We used to go to Portobello Road market together every Saturday and he taught me how to identify a first edition. I had unrestricted access to his entire library. We lived in a small suburban house where there was no privacy. I shared a bedroom with my sister and the only place I could be alone was the loo. During school holidays, I think I spent most of my waking hours locked in the toilet with a book. I was a serial reader, so I’d find an author and then read everything by them. I graduated from Enid Blyton to Angela Brazil – I loved boarding school stories – and Agatha Christie. As an older teenager, it was Sartre and Camus, Zola and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Continue reading Interview | Ros Schwartz | Translator of the Week

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