top of page
French and German translator and interpreter
Rachel Farmer MA
LITERARY TRANSLATION
My latest publication:
In Foreign Lands, Trees Speak Arabic by Usama Al Shahmani
Part of the +SVIZRA series from Strangers Press.
USAMA AL SHAHMANI left his native Iraq and is living as an asylum-seeker in Switzerland. Worried about his brother in Baghdad and bewildered by the inscrutable behaviours of the Swiss (such as their strange propensity for walking in the woods), he initially struggles to get to grips with life in this new land. He grapples with feelings of loss and questions of identity, torn between his adopted country and the culture he was forced to abandon. But, little by little, with the help of a couple of kind strangers, he starts to find his feet and discovers a sense of home through the natural world.
Translations
-
Feel Free by Dagmar Schifferli (extract) - Asymptote blog (August 2022)
-
The Miner and the Canary by Catherine Safonoff (extract) - Summer 2022 issue of Asymptote
-
In Foreign Lands, Trees Speak Arabic by Usama Al Shahmani (extract) - part of the +SVIZRA series from Strangers Press (August 2022 - order all eight chapbooks now!)
-
The Interpreter by Isabella Pallavicini (February 2022)
-
'The Third Wolf' by Katharina Bendixen - Issue 23 of SAND (November 2021)
-
We Have Lived Here Since We were Born by Andreas Moster (extract) - in Elemental anthology, part of the Calico Series from Two Lines Press (March 2021)​
-
'The Mutation' by Francis Kirps - Issue 15 of No Man's Land (January 2021)
-
Missed the Future? by Cornelius Boersch and Thomas Middelhoff (publication date tbc)
Prizes and Awards
-
Second place in the 2022 John Dryden translation prize (and longlisted for another piece the same year)
-
Runner-up in the 2020 Austrian Cultural Forum (ACF) London translation prize​
-
Longlisted for the 2020 John Dryden translation prize
Related work
In addition to full-length works, I am available for:
-
English translation samples for foreign-language publishers
-
Reader reports for English-language publishers interested in French or German titles
-
Editorial services
-
Book reviews
I also work as the chief executive assistant and drama section liaison at Asymptote journal.
​
I also write book reviews of English-language titles (including books in English translation).
Here are some reviews I have written for Lunate literary journal:
-
Ankomst by Gøhril Gabrielsen (tr. Deborah Dawkin)
-
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
-
The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes
-
Many People Die Like You by Lina Wolff (tr. Saskia Vogel)
-
Daughters by Lucy Fricke (tr. Sinéad Crowe)
-
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
-
Viral by Matthew Sperling
-
The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili (tr. Elizabeth Heighway)
-
The House Uptown by Melissa Ginsburg
-
The Child by Kjersti A. Skomsvold (tr. Martin Aitken)
-
The Disassembly of Doreen Durand by Ryan Collett
-
Andrea Víctrix by Llorenç Villalonga (tr. P. Louise Johnson)
-
The Intimate Resistance by Josep Maria Esquirol (tr. Douglas Suttle)
-
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
​
And for the Asymptote journal blog:
-
On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason (tr. Lytton Smith)
-
Phenotypes by Paulo Scott (tr. Daniel Hahn)
-
The Left Parenthesis by Muriel Villanueva (tr. María Cristina Hall and Megan Berkobien)
​
Watch my interview with Raül Garrasait and Tiago Miller, author and translator (respectively) of The Others, published by Fum d'Estampa Press. Read my interview with Paulo Scott and Daniel Hahn about Scott's novel Phenotypes on the Asymptote blog.
​
I also write reviews of French and German titles that have not yet been translated into English. Click here to view my latest book reviews on my blog.
bottom of page