I'm an experienced translator from French and German into English. While working as an editor in London, I translated a range of financial, legal and art texts. I've since worked on literary and academic translation projects.
Read my Herald essay about translation
In 2014, I completed Outside Verdun, a new translation of German-Jewish author Arnold Zweig’s first world war epic Erziehung vor Verdun. Zweig’s book, which is full of humour and fascinating social detail, provides an unrivalled insight into the machinery of war. It was twice overlooked by the literary establishment, first because of the author's ethnicity and then because of his politics.
When the book was first published in 1935 by Querido in Amsterdam, Zweig had fled to Czechoslovakia to avoid persecution as a Jew. When he returned from exile in Palestine in 1948, he chose, as a communist, to live in East Germany, becoming president of the East German Academy of Arts.
Outside Verdun, which was published to mark the centenary of the commencement of hostilities in 1914, was the first UK publication of Zweig's masterpiece. The new translation brought his masterful prose and unheroic view of war to a new audience.
I studied modern languages at St Andrews University, including translation methodology. I graduated with an MA (Hons) in French and German and a distinction in spoken French.
Please contact me if you have a translation project that you would like to discuss with me.
Praise for Outside Verdun
“… a spirited and highly readable translation”
Times Literary Supplement
“This invigorating new translation by Fiona Rintoul is timely and welcome.”
The Independent