penkraft

I am 55. I live between Toulouse and Barcelona. In my family, on both sides, father and mother, we have been French-Spanish bilinguals since my grandparents. I have lived in Belgium, France, Mexico and Spain. I did some Law studies, wrote my first novel in Spanish in my twenties in Barcelona. Aside from working with my father on international industrial projects and patents of invention (EPO, USPO) until my thirties, I started translating articles for the Spanish publishing house Salvat Editores in my early twenties (a Larousse scientific encyclopedia for youngsters, a French history encyclopedia of WWII). French side, I worked for six years at the press group "Journal Le 09 / Journal d'Ariège" in the Pyrenees in the 1980's. I have also published a few short stories in the French magazine "Maxi," including the translation from English into French of short stories by Rachel Tyson. In French I have written two novels and I am working on a collection of science fiction short stories that I translate into my other languages. As far as the English language is concerned, I went to an American school in my childhood. I did English linguistics studies in both Barcelona and Toulouse, and in the early 1990's I wrote a novel that was my first school of style in English. Among other things, I lived in the 1990's with an American poet called Elizabeth Broome. She won an American prize of poetry in her youth. With her I undertook the tricky translation into English of Luís Cernuda's works. Cernuda is a great poet of the so-called Spanish "generación del 27" and each poem was extremely difficult to translate. I have also taken part into a competition at Helium with an article entitled "Work Permit." I am quite aware of the usage differences between "British" and "American" English (much the same applies to French and Spanish). Among other tools I use the "NTC's Dictionary of American slang and colloquial expressions" and the French/English "Dictionary of American English Colloquial Phrases." Last but certainly not least, in case of doubt I can count on my friend Rachel to check out my eventual "English versions" to make sure they are perfect English.