British Centre for Literary Translation

Summer School

Biographies

Writers In Residence and Workshop Leaders 2013

Cristhiano Aguiar is a writer and essayist. Born in Campina Grande, Paraíba, he has lived in Recife, Berlin, Olinda, São Paulo and Berkeley. A visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, Aguiar is also a PHD candidate at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo. He was editor of the experimental literary magazines Eita! and Crispim. Aguiar’s first collection, Ao lado do muro, was published in 2006. He is currently working on his first novel and also writing essays about contemporary Brazilian literature. In 2012, he was selected by Granta magazine as one of the 20 best young Brazilian novelists.

Jeffrey Angles (1971) is an associate professor of Japanese and translation at Western Michigan University (USA).  He is the author of Writing the Love of Boys (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and is an award-winning translator specialising in Japanese modernist texts and contemporary poetry, Recent translations include Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Itō Hiromi (Action Books, 2009), Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako (University of California Press, 2010),  and Twelve Views from the Distance by Mutsuo Takahashi (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), which was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Awards (2013).  He also writes poetry, primarily in Japanese.

Kari Fredrikke Brænne  is from Oslo, Norway. Her novel Av en annen verden (A different world) was awarded Aschehougs Debutant Grant in 2007. Her second novel Under de dype skyggene av løvtunge trær (Under the Deep Shadows) achieved critical acclaim, as well as sales to Germany, France and Latvia. She has written several theatrical plays that have been performed on different stages in Norway. The comedy The Poor Girl and the Bingo Prince won the 2010 Østfold Regional Manuscript Competition, and has been published in English. Brænne is educated as a fine artist. She studied drawing in Italy, film, photography and painting at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and holds a MFA in painting and sculpture from the New York Academy of Art. She teaches creative writing at Aschehoug Author Academy

Katy Derbyshire (1973) is a London-born translator who has been in Berlin since 1996. She studied German literature in the UK and has a diploma in translation. She co-edits the online magazine of contemporary German writing in English no man’s land, co-hosts a monthly translation lab in Berlin and writes the blog love german books all on her own. Katy has translated books by Helene Hegemann, Clemens Meyer,  Inka Parei, Simon Urban, Dorothee Elmiger, Sibylle Lewitscharoff and the young adult writers Rusalka Reh and Beate Theresa Hanika, plus short stories and extracts by numerous German language writers.

Kari Dickson grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, but spent most of her summers in Norway with grandparents who couldn’t speak English, so spoke Norwegian from an early age. She went on to read Scandinavian Studies at UCL. While working in theatre in London, she was asked to do literal translations of two Ibsen plays, which fuelled her interest in Norwegian literature and led to an MA in Translation at the University of Surrey. Having worked initially as a commercial translator, including some years at the central bank of Norway, she now concentrates solely on literature. Her portfolio includes literary fiction, crime, non-fiction and plays. Her translation of Roslund & Hellström’s Three Seconds won the CWA International Dagger in 2011. Kari currently also teaches Norwegian language, literature and translation in the Scandinavian Studies department at the University of Edinburgh.

Daniela Droescher (Munich, 1977) is a Berlin-based writer of prose, essays and plays. She studied German Literature and Language, Philosophy and English Literary Studies in Trier and London, and has written her doctoral thesis on the works of the German-Japanese writer Yoko Tawada. After that, she studied Dramatic Writing at the University of Graz, Austria.  For her works, she has been awarded with several prizes and scholarships, e.g. the Anna Seghers-Prize and a grant by the Villa-Aurora / L.A. She has published two novels, The Lights of George Psalmanazar (Berlin Verlag 2009) and Pola (Berlin Verlag 2012), and Gloria, a collection of short stories (Berlin Verlag 2010).

BJ Epstein translates from the Scandinavian languages to English, and is a lecturer in literature and translation. Her research includes work on children’s literature, queer studies, thrillers, and Holocaust literature, and also on how all these types of literature are translated. She has published dozens of articles, short stories, personal essays, and translations.

Daniel Hahn is National Programme Director at BCLT and editor of In Other Words, the journal for literary translators. He is a writer, editor and translator with some thirty books to his name. His translations from Portuguese, Spanish and French include fiction from Europe, Africa and the Americas; and non-fiction by writers ranging from Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago to Brazilian footballer Pelé. Forthcoming translations include work by Philippe Claudel, Eduardo Halfon and José Eduardo Agualusa. He has edited a number of reference books, and is currently compiling the new Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature. His work has won him the Blue Peter Book Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

Johanna Holmstrom (1981) was born and raised in Sibbo, on the Swedish-speaking southern coast of Finland, and now lives in Helsinki. Only 22 years old she made her literary debut with a collection of short stories, Inlåst och andra noveller, which was nominated for the 2004 Swedish Radio Short Story Award. Her third short story collection,Camera Obscura, was awarded the 2009 Svenska Dagbladet Literature Prize and the 2009 Swedish YLE Literature Prize. Johanna Holmström holds degrees in journalism and literature and has worked for Finnish radio. She has written four works of fiction, and her latest novel Asfaltsänglar was published in March 2013.

Aoko Matsuda was born in Hyogo in 1979. She graduated from Doshisha University Faculty of Letters, Department of English. She published her first novel in 2007. Her keen mixture of rhythmical spoken language and bookish sensibility suggests fresh possibilities for Japanese literature. She looks set to become one of Japan’s leading young authors.

Anne McLean  has translated Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs, and other writings by authors including Julio Cortázar, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Carmen Martín Gaite and Tomás Eloy Martínez. She has twice been awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize: in 2009 for her translation of Evelio Rosero’s novel The Armies and, in 2004, for Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas. Translations and co-translations in progress include books by Enrique Vila-Matas, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Evelio Rosero and Javier Cercas.

Javier Montes  (Madrid, 1976) won the Premio José María de Pereda with his first novel, Los penúltimos, which was followed by his novel Segunda parte. His last novel is La vida de hotel (Anagrama, 2012). Along with Andrés Barba he won the Premio Anagrama de Ensayo for La ceremonia del porno. They also collaborated in the publication of After Henry James. In 2010, Granta included him among their selection Best of Young Spanish-language Novelists and his stories have appeared in various anthologies. As a translator he has focused on critical publication and research into the works of Shakespeare: he has also translated works by Mary Robison, Dore Ashton, Charles Dickens, Guillaume Apollinaire and Rachid O. Since 2012 he has worked as Literary Director of the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Florence.

 

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