About

After completing a BA in Modern Languages (English and German), I decided to turn to translation, focusing initially on conference interpreting (Institut de Traducteurs et d'Interprètes, Strasbourg, France), before I realized that my true passion lay in literary translation, which then led me to complete two MAs in Literary Translation (Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux, France).

An early immersion in the United States (AFS exchange student) gave me the travel bug and paved the way for a series of experiences abroad that have been enriching on many levels and have encouraged me to live "in translation". I have since been teaching modern languages, mostly French and English, in Europe and overseas, in the hope to share my love of foreign languages and, in turn, learn from intercultural and multilingual encounters.

Research interests

Caribbean literature

Indian ocean literature (with a particular interest in the Mascarene islands)

Diasporic writers & migration literature

Translation theory, particularly postcolonial translation theory

Literary translation

Self-translation

Current Projects

My research focuses on the translation of Caribbean literature written by Anglophone, Hispanophone and Francophone authors. It stems from the actual experience of literary translation and draws on the notion of liminality, which, I believe, offers a multi-faceted perspective on Caribbean literature, as well as on translational strategies. My work wishes to rehabilitate paratextual practices when translating Caribbean literature and investigates the so-called "margins" of the text as powerful contact zones.

It also focuses on the circulation and translatability of Caribbean literature both outside and within the confines of the region. A five-month research project in Puerto Rico, for which I received an additional research grant from the YPCCS, allowed me to investigate more specifically models of alternative, pan-Caribbean publishing initiatives (internship at Isla Negra Editores, San Juan, PR).

Talks and conference papers

Poster presentation, "World Literature and Untranslatability", 21 November 2014, University of East Anglia.

Panel on "Migration and Literature: a Cross-School Reading Group", Modern Languages Symposium, 26 May 2015, University of Warwick.

"The Caribbean in translation: experiencing thresholds", PG Caribbean Studies Conference, 3 June 2015, University of Warwick.

"Thresholds of creolisation in David Dabydeen’s The Counting House (1996) and its French translation, Terres Maudites (2000) by Ananda Devi", 39th annual Society for Caribbean Studies conference, 1-3 July 2015, The Drum International Arts Centre, Birmingham.

“Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound?”, conference on Translation and Modernism, 22-23 January 2016, University of Warwick.

“Métissage des identités francophones au contact du metier à filer du traducteur”, two-day conference on Identités plurielles en Francophonie, 17-18 March 2016, Université d’Angers.

"(Self-) translation: a pan-Caribbean condition?”, 40th annual SCS conference, July 2016, University of Newcastle.

“Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound?”, one-day conference on War in Poetry: Breaking into family and everyday life (paper redrafted from previous presentation at Warwick in January 2016), 17 November 2016, Université de Poitiers.

"Isla Negra editores: porte-voix de littératures (ré)émergentes dans l'espace littéraire caribéen", one-day conference on Les écritures et voix de l'émergence à Porto Rico et dans la Caraïbe, 03 February 2017, Université de Rennes II.

"Translating Caribbean localities: navigating the waters of global literary circulation and/or resisting its ebb and flow?", Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture on "Global Translations", 26 June-1 July 2017, Lisbon.

Presentation of overall research project and of "Translating Caribbean localities in a global literary market", Summer School on Caribbean Literature and Globalisation, University of Konstanz, 2-5 August 2017.

Selected publications

Translations:

• guide and audio books, Canton of Mézin: Gascon country (Editions Fragile, 2008);
• translations and adaptations for Planète Chinois (Réseau Canopé, 2013 - present);
• translation review for Thor Polson’s translation of Kafka’s A Hunger Artist and other stories, Guernica Editions, 2014);
• contributions (translation, proofreading) for the Carribean Studies journal (Instituto de Estudios del Caribe, UPR-RP, Puerto Rico, November 2016 - present);
• translation of 'A Little Fire of No Consequence', by Gisèle Pineau, Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture: Vol. 2 , Article 5, accessible online here
• subtitling (into English) of 'Poétique du Divers: Edouard Glissant', film documentary by Guillaume Robillard (Golda Production, December 2017)

Scholarly articles:

• "Ananda Devi, traductrice bravant le kala pani", Mosaïques, hors-série (3), Université de Maroua, décembre 2015
• "(Ré)écritures bifocales : trans-lations et trans-fusions portoricaines dans les autotraductions de Rosario Ferré et Esmeralda Santiago", Presses de Paris Ouest, to be published
• “Francopolyphonies in translation”, Francosphères 5.2., Liverpool University Press, 2016, accessible online here
  
• "Publishing against the tide: Isla Negra Editores, an example of pan-Caribbean transL/National solidarity", Mutatis Mutandis: La traducción literaria en el Gran Caribe, 10, 1 (2017), pp. 46-69, accessible here

Qualifications

• Masters 2 Professionnels "Métiers de la traduction littéraire" - English and German (Université Bordeaux III, Michel de Montaigne, 2007 & 2008)

Teaching qualifications:

• D.U. FLES (Université Bordeaux III, Michel de Montaigne, 2008)
• CAPES externe anglais (2011)
• Agrégation externe anglais (2014)

Other activities

Committee member (PG representative) of the Society for Caribbean Studies, 2015-2016
Panel chairing for the 40th annual SCS conference held in Newcastle
Co-organisation of the first PG conference on Caribbean In/Securities and creativity sponsored by the CARISSC network held on 23 May 2016 at the University of Birmingham

Prizes and distinctions

Best Paper Award for "Translating Caribbean localities: navigating the waters of global literary circulation and/or resisting its ebb and flow?" (Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture, 2017).

David Nicholls Memorial Prize from the Society for Caribbean Studies (2017).