As part of Libraries Week, we have an illustration focus.  We'll be talking with a number of illustrators about their thoughts and views about libraries and many have created special library doodles for us to share!  We are thrilled to welcome Ehsan Abdollahi.  Ehsan is an art teacher, illustrator and animator.  He has illustrated several books including Thinker: My Puppy Poet and Me and A Bottle of Happiness.  

Please can you introduce yourself and your work?

I'm a lecturer of illustration at Tehran University of Arts and an illustrator.  Most of my illustrations are for children.

I always like to experiment with different techniques in illustrating my books, such as collage, watercolor, acrylic, etc.  In the last book I published in the UK The Secret of the Tattered Shoes (Tiny Owl), I used a combination of paper dolls and collages.

This year's Libraries Week is themed around books and reading, can you tell us about some of the books you enjoyed as a child?

When I was a child, I was very interested in The Little Mermaid storybook.  My father always read this book to me or I listened to his story tape and looked at the pictures in the book.  The mysterious spaces under the sea have always fascinated me.  Although the  characters had fish-like tails, they were amazing and magical to me.
Sometimes I thought that maybe one day I would have a tail like a mermaid

What do you feel is important about libraries?

In my opinion, the most important thing about library spaces is their soothing atmosphere. This is where people, children, and grown-ups can find peace. They are also points of knowledge and nothing can replace them. A dreamy library for me is one with sunlight, green plants, beechwood, and white walls.

Can you share details of one of your favourite libraries please?

The most beautiful library for me is still the library in my nursery school. This library was not large, only a few blue shelves with a number of children's books. But it is still the most beautiful library for me.

What are you working on next?

Currently, I'm working on a book about the lockdown. This book is an experience of group work, in which various illustrators contribute their experiences during the lockdown in the form of an illustration. Hopefully, this book will be published by Tiny Owl in March 2021.

The latest book published by me was a unique experience collaborating with Jackie Morris, The Secret of the Tattered Shoes, (Tiny Owl).

I'm going to write a story about mermaids. This is a good opportunity for me to illustrate my own story.

A huge thank you to Ehsan for sharing his thoughts and creating such a special library inspired doodle!

We are delighted to welcome illustrator Daisy Hirst to the blog for an interview about her work, influences and techniques.  Daisy is the illustrator of numerous picturebooks and has two board books, Monster Clothes and Monster Fun publishing with Walker Books.  Be sure to check through the gallery of images which Daisy has shared with us at the end of this post.

Can you tell us a little about yourself - background, interest in illustration and how you came into this.

Well I grew up in London, and I always loved drawing, stories, writing and making things. For a long time I took my writing more seriously than my drawing: poetry was my main thing as an older child and teenager and I went on to study English and Creative Writing at Warwick. I think perhaps poetry became so serious for me that it stopped being fun, and then I couldn’t do it anymore. All the time I kept doodling – just because, or for birthday cards – and I never saw any reason to stop reading children’s books. Gradually I found out more about people who made picture books, and I became more and more envious of them. I thought I’d probably missed the boat by choosing words over pictures at 18, so I was very excited to discover that the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art accepted people with all kinds of backgrounds, and amazed when I got a place. It’s a fantastic course, and I’m one of many people it’s been life-changing for.

Which illustrators works do you admire and why - if possible it would be great to look at examples where you feel there's a really interesting and successful synergy between text and illustration, where you feel admire the illustrator's technique or style etc..  Our readership is librarians and so it's really useful for them to have other ways of looking at books and different perspectives to bring to this!

How to choose?! There are so many illustrators whose work I couldn’t do without. I could go on about John Burningham for days, he’s probably my favourite picture-book-maker for his warmth, humour, honesty and imagination – and he was incredibly inventive in the ways he used words and pictures. And Quentin Blake was a huge influence on me. Of younger illustrators, I was very excited to discover Beatrice Alemagna and Kitty Crowther when I first went to BolognaBookfair: both have some books published in English now, although Crowther less so – which is a shame because she’s a fantastic storyteller. Her illustrations are so atmospheric and alive and her characters are glorious, her books feel timeless to me – original and unpretentious. It’s somehow freeing to know her work, for instance because she seems to make picturebooks for a very wide age-range and some of them have a lot of words, which seems to be very rare in the UK at the moment. Alemagna’s example also feels liberating, both in the unusual kinds of stories she tells and in her uncompromising and beautiful artwork. One more: Alexis Deacon is brilliant at letting his (incredible) illustrations do a lot of the storytelling, and at leaving gaps for the reader. His characters are wonderful and his stories are thoughtful, moving and really funny.

Do you feel your background in creative writing has helped with your picture books and if so in what ways?  There is definitely a tremendously strong sense of voice in your work!

Thank you! Well I think the words are as important as the pictures in picture books, so it certainly helped me to have spent all those years obsessing about words. Writing (and reading) poems is perhaps especially useful in some ways, because poems have a lot in common with picture book texts – the importance of musicality and being economical for instance. Having said that, maybe it’d be just as useful to have written lots of thrillers and be ace at plot?

Your first picture book was The Girl with the Parrot on her Head can you tell us a little about how that came about?

I was in the middle of my MA when I first wrote The Girl with the Parrot on her Head (and drew it – words and pictures developed together in my sketchbook) and although it wasn’t my first picture book idea, it felt more personal and urgent. The process felt very similar to the associative way my poems used to grow, which was a bit frightening (was it a story? Would it ever make sense?) but exciting too. I’m so glad Walker let me make this one first – I was surprised they did because other publishers had seemed befuddled by or dismissive of the book, and I was feeling quite hopeless about it. I suppose it deals with quite difficult feelings and is also the kind of book where it’s not always clear how real/imaginary/metaphorical things are. I think Walker first saw my work at Bologna bookfair, where the MA course had a stand, then I kept badgering them for some months or a year, until in the end we had a meeting just as I was about to graduate.

There's a joyous loose quality to your illustrations, can you tell us about your technique - preferred media, how you set about storyboarding and the stages/processes you go through.

Thank you! It’s very important to me, that looseness, so I’ve spent years finding ways to stop myself tightening up, or tidying up, too much. I do most of my drawing in very black ink, with a (very badly-cared-for) dip-pen, so there’s no possibility of rubbing anything out – I prefer to just draw things very quickly and very small, again and again and again until they’re right. I also draw almost everything in sketchbooks – rather than on beautifully stretched expensive paper for instance – because I need to feel like it doesn’t really matter if it’s pants. My Walker books are all illustrated with screenprints, a process which has been brilliant for me in so many ways: it means I can make my drawings out of lots of little bits stuck together, rather than trying to do one perfect drawing of everything (I used to do this and the pictures were horribly stiff). It also means I can draw at the scale that’s comfortable for me (tiny) and that my inability to draw big things becomes a kind of strength – making tiny thumbnail drawings and enlarging them, rather than working full-size, makes it so much easier, for me at least, to think about page-design and dynamic compositions.

I’ve jumped ahead though, to the artwork-making stage. My process almost always begins with doodling in my sketchbook (which I do first thing, almost every day). When I get interested in a character I keep drawing them, seeing what they do, and I try to get them talking. The words and pictures develop together and eventually, when I feel there’s a story emerging, I start trying to storyboard it. But this is a dangerous step – often I’ll do something less structured first, so as not to scare the story back under the hedge, like scanning the doodles and cutting-and-sticking them into some kind of sequence. Sometimes I’ll show my editor and art director these collages, or sometimes they’ll first see the idea at the storyboard stage. My first storyboards are always very rough, often an impossible length – they’re more about seeing if this thing has the makings of a satisfying story. We work out things like pacing, composition and page-turns through many redraftings. But my roughs stay rough – I learnt from reading about Quentin Blake’s process that it helps to leave things not quite fully-realised, so that when you do the final drawings you’re still finding things out.

I Do Not Like Books Anymore was selected for the 2020 Read for Empathy Collection, what role do you feel picture books can play in helping to promote empathic responses?

I was so pleased about that! I think all good stories probably help develop or reinforce empathy, because it feels as if we experience being someone else as we read or listen. I think picture books, especially when children have an adult who talks with them about what they read, can help children think about how other people feel. I’d guess that for very young children, books can help them to think about and articulate their own experiences, to feel like they are seen and understood and cared for – which are prerequisites for understanding and caring for others.

Natalie and Alphonse feel an incredibly fresh pairing, can you tell us a little about how you created them?  It feels very reassuring that Natalie does not find reading easy.

I’ve been doodling monsters for a very long time: Natalie and Alphonse grew out of some red and blue ones that I drew and screenprinted for the cover of our MA catalogue in 2012, and which Walker then asked me to develop into a picture book. The catalogue monsters were drawing each other and I thought of them as drawing each other into existence. This isn’t what actually happens in the stories, but the idea of children’s creativity being very powerful is there in all the Natalie and Alphonse books. The books are about very small children’s everyday lives and ordinary catastrophes – things like arguing with your little brother or learning to read. I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! grew out of doodles like my other books, but once I realised there was a story there about Natalie learning to read, and what happens to her love of books and stories when she struggles with reading, I knew I had to be very careful and thoughtful about getting that story right and about how I told it. I didn’t find learning to read easy myself, even though – like Natalie – I already loved books and stories. I’ve also been a primary school TA so I was thinking about some of the children I’ve worked with, too. I hoped it would be reassuring and empowering, for children whose love of stories was being tested, to see that experience represented in a book.

It’s lovely that you say they feel fresh – at first I was worried about making a series (what if I just made the same book again and again? What if I got bored or boring?), but actually it’s been wonderful to get to know these characters so well.

You have some boardbooks Monster Clothes and Monster Food publishing this year, can you introduce us to these please and what differences were there working in the board book format? What are you planning to work on next?

I’m so excited about my monster babies! It’s a bit undignified. The thing is, I’ve been waiting to make these for eight years! Like The Girl with the Parrot on her Head, they began as an MA project, and right from the beginning they were so much fun. As the titles suggest, one is about what little monsters eat (not always food) and the other tells us what they like to wear (not always clothes). It’s lovely to do something where the narrative is very simple and the pictures are graphically spare, but also: these books are just so silly! And musicality seems particularly important in writing for babies, so MONSTER FOOD rhymes and MONSTER CLOTHES is alliterative. The actual books are beautifully produced – luxury board books really, but still highly chewable – and I’m happy to say they’re very true to their original weirdness. The monsters have got a bit sweeter and younger-looking but they still wear tomatoes and pants on their heads and attempt to eat tractors. I can’t wait to see what some actual babies think!

As for what next, I’ve just finished a picture book that is (mostly) about HUMAN BEINGS, which made a change – although now I feel more monsters coming on.

A HUGE thank you to Daisy Hirst for this brilliantly insightful interview and for sharing a wonderful gallery of images with us!  Why not follow Daisy on instagram @Deenface or Twitter @Deenface?

(1) Daisy Laughing at her Desk

(2) First sketchbook doodle of The Girl with the Parrot on her Head

(3) Storyboards, roughs and mini dummy-books for The Girl with the Parrot on her Head

(4) My first book, The Girl with the Parrot on her Head (Walker Books, 2015)

(5) Sketchbook page from when I was developing I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! (Walker Books, 2018)

(6) I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! doodles rearranged into a rough sequence before storyboarding

(7) Stages in a screenprint for I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! 

(8) Natalie gets her first reading book, from I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE! 

(9) Red and blue monsters for MA show catalogue, who grew into Natalie and Alphonse

(10) MONSTER FOOD and MONSTER CLOTHES board books (Walker Books, 2020)

(11) Peaches: From MONSTER FOOD

(12) Chairs: From MONSTER FOOD

We are delighted to welcome poet Mandy Coe to the blog to talk about the adventures of co-curating the Children's Collection with the brand new Manchester Poetry Library.  Look out for Mandy's latest collection of poetry Belonging Street.

At the opening of the first free lending library in Manchester in 1852, writer William Thackeray said that people wanted books, '…as much as we look to air, or as much as we look to light and water…' He was right, and the library proved to be so popular that day, a police constable was placed at the librarian’s desk to help keep order. Today, Manchester is a UNESCO City of Literature, famous for its vibrant art, music and literature scene, a perfect place for Manchester Poetry Library and its programme of cross-arts collaboration, translation and recordings of new work.

So, if Manchester is the right choice for this project, was I the right choice as co-curator? I think so! My comprehensive school (think 1970s, bell-bottoms and strikes) owned two poetry anthologies from Geoffrey Summerfield’s series, Voices. Full of edgy poems and illustrations of their time, they were designed to subvert. Like all school texts, the spines were cracked with being hurled about, but as we scowled and licked pencils, poised to graffiti the pages, the poems crept in. The door to literature, and in many cases, literacy, might have been closed to us, yet these books represented a loose panel begging to be jimmied open. I knew an invitation when I saw one, and took it.

The co-curation commission arrived at the same time as Covid 19, and looking around at my bookshelves, I was grateful that designing educational material for National Poetry Day and the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf had brought so many books my way. The lovely Anne Fine, as children’s laureate, left My Home Library as her legacy, and this inspired me to stock-take mine, and I set to: piling up new books and blowing dust off old favourites. Here were cheap and cheerful paperbacks filled with pen and ink drawings, plus huge books creaking open to full-colour spreads that made you hold your breath. And of course (thanks Oxfam) one battered set of Voices.

However, my library wasn’t this library… and it wasn’t as simple as sizing up… or sizing down (surveying ‘Top Ten’ poetry book lists of the great-and-good, confirmed a core list, but it also generated an infinite wish-list. Is this what ‘curation’ means, I wondered? The capacity to cull combined with the knack of cultivation? From my occasional stints as editor I knew the origins of the word ‘anthology’ was from the Greek, anthologia, meaning ‘bouquet’. It seemed that, like anthologised poems, each book must stand alone, yet resonate with others to suggest what lies beyond. I sat in a circle of books and resolved to borrow the three elements of Thackery’s speech:

Air: the community is the library

First goal… to support the Manchester Poetry Library’s commitment to reflect its community. Over 200 languages are spoken in Manchester, making it one of the most language-diverse cities in the UK. Guided by Poetry Projects Manager at MMU, Martin Kratz – a poet and passionate advocate of poetry in translation – the collection will be rich with books in translation and in first language. This celebration of both local and worldwide poets will be developed through MPL’s programmes of festivals, readings, mushairas and the commission of translation and new writing.

Light: not nursery rhymes as an afterthought

Second goal… ensure a balanced selection for the three age-categories (0-5, 6-12, 13-17) with an equal representation of single-author collections v anthologies, classic v contemporary, a multicultural range of writers, humour v reflective, small press v larger publishers, plus a range of languages and audio. I was very happy to include infants in the category, and thanks to the extremely experienced MPL’s director, Becky Swain, we have a ‘young adult’ category for teens.

Water: education

Third goal… create a fourth category for educators and writers. In addition to my work as a poet/illustrator and visiting teaching Fellow of MMU, I am a free-lance literacy advocate working with schools and inner-city projects, so I know that this category of teaching materials (including online resources) will be invaluable. This category will support librarians, teachers, teacher-writers and writers who visit schools, and help MPL develop a programme of children’s education events sharing innovative ways of teaching poetry.

Opening up and opening out

With the library’s physical opening postponed due to Covid 19, my final goal was to put on the ‘virtual kettle’ and open the co-curation up to the champions of children’s books. We selected libraries, reading and literacy projects throughout the UK, plus a few overseas, such as the Bookaroo Festival in Delhi and the Writers & Teachers Collaborative, in New York. A named individual in each organisation was asked to suggest one or two favourite children’s poetry books. This not only got people discussing children’s poetry, but will enable MPL to make these champions visible to young readers through, “This book is recommended by….” bookplates. Responses from this amazing community were positive, considered and generous. Anne Fine invited us to use bookplates from ‘My Home Library’ while Apples and Snakes even offered to send free audio CDs! What a pleasure this ‘open co-curation project’ was. To all who responded during lock-down, thank you, thank you.

In 2014, seeing children’s poetry categorised under ‘jokes and horror’, MMU’s brilliant Writing School team and Kaye Tew at the Manchester Children’s Book Festival, transformed, for one year, the prestigious Manchester Prize into a competition to support children’s poets. Judged by myself and poets, Imtiaz Dharker and Philip Gross, the best poems formed, Let in the Stars. This beautiful anthology, with a forward by Carol Ann Duffy, was nominated for the CLiPPA prize – testimony to all the illustrators and poets such as Carole Bromley, Ashley Gill, Chrissie Gittins, Matt Goodfellow, Louise Grieg, Sue Hardy-Dawson – to name but a few. Imagine how wonderful it is now, to be ordering these writers’ books for the MPL collection.

The collection touches on so many topics, there’s no doubt it will reflect our young reader’s lives. With books like Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community, From Medusa To The Sky: Teaching Writing To Children With Special Needs, and Somos Como Las Nubes, (We Are Like The Clouds), Poems About Immigration, we are confident that the collection relates to both the public and the personal. Here, children and parents, all our readers, will have a safe, creative place to explore the world through poetry – no longer simply a category within a library, but a library within a category. I can’t wait to see you there.

A huge thank you to Mandy Coe for writing this far-reaching blog feature.

We are delighted to welcome Colette Hiller to the blog to talk about The B on Your Thumb a collection of poetry published by Quarto which uses rhythm, humour and wordplay to help to develop a love of the English language.  The book has been chosen as a recommended read for National Poetry Day.

I began life as a dancer at  NY’s  High School of Performing Arts (as in  the film Fame.) Interestingly, fame was not something any of us thought about.  But yes, we really did dance on the desks !    I  came to London with the original  Broadway production of Annie and liked it so much I stayed.   After years on the London stage – with the RSC (spear carrier on the right) and the National Theatre (spear carrier on the left) , I joined The BBC  as a researcher and then producer.   I  loved it there and worked 

across many departments, Education to Current Affairs. This led to my role as a cultural producer at   Sing London, filling  city streets with public pianos, ping pong tables and Talking Statues.  I’ve  also written a best selling children’s CD –  Applehead  – The B is my first book. 

The oral nature of language and storytelling is such an important part of our literary culture and of our early introductions to reading.  How much did this influence you?

Strawberry short cake cream on top. Tell me the name of  your sweet heart is it A? B? C  I was hugely influenced by the skipping rope and handclapping songs of my youth.    The rhythm, internal meter and simplicity of these rhymes  stuck in my head.   Further influence came from A A Milne , Mother Goose and  from Alligator Pie the Canadian classic by  Dennis Lee.  ( I was chuffed to bits when  Dennis Lee  wrote an endorsement for the book. And in  rhyme!)

Are there any rhymes that are particular favourites and, if so, why?

These rhymes  are  like  my children so I don’t like to show favouritism! That said...I especially like  TION – which tells  a  funny story.   The A in my Head – is wonderfully  daft!   And... I like A lot  a lot.   I’m actually a  rotten speller  myself, and so this  rhyme reminds me how to spell the word!. 

A  Lot

A  lot is not  just one word ,

 it’s always made of two

A lot of people don’t  know that

From now on, you do!

How important do you think sharing and reading aloud is?

Reading aloud  is  particularly important  with poetry .  When a poem is words on the page,  it’s only half formed.   It comes alive when said aloud.     My challenge when writing these was to create rhymes which felt  easy to recite,  and  gratifying.

Some of the complexities and irregularities of the English language can make learning to read quite tricky?  Do you have any experiences from working with BBC Education or through your work with early education about some of the challenges associated with this?

English is tricky and  lots of things seem to make no sense.  But  that doesn’t mean  these irregularities are s tricky to teach.   You just have to explain that they are weird.  For that matter,  take my rhyme to explain the spelling of  WEIRD

WEIRD

I before E

Except after C

And W too

On the odd occasion

(Which is wEIrd!)

What do you think of Tor's illustrations and did you have any interaction with him during the process of the book?

Tor ’s illustrations are  lively, entertaining and imaginative.  While a silent B may be painfully  shy, a Bossy E is  downright  bolshie!  But more than that, the illustrations  reinforce   the learning message  of each rhyme.    They are also  filled with  hidden things for children to find. 


There is a real sense of play, fun and interaction in the book, how important do you feel these are to learning?

I think the process of  learning to read should itself be enjoyable and entertaining.  It  shouldn’t be  arduous or medicinal.  And above all it shouldn’t be predictable!

All of these rhymes were  created around  a  playful sense of fun. 

Thank you to Colette for the interview and to Quarto for the opportunity.

We are delighted to welcome Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp to the blog.  Ruth is the translator of b small publishing's How Do Bridges Work? written and illustrated by Roman Belyaev.  Here Ruth provides an insight into translation.  Many thanks to Sam Hutchinson from b small publishing for the opportunity.


How long have you been a translator and how did you get started?

I qualified as a professional translator in 2004 when I finished an MA and postgraduate diploma in translation, but my first taste of freelance translation was during my third year abroad, when I spent 4 months in Dresden. I translated some texts and marketing videos for an eco tech company at Dresden Environment Centre - a really fascinating experience. 


This new book from b small publishing, HOW DO BRIDGES WORK?, was originally written in Russian. Tell us about your connection to the Russian language.

I started learning Russian aged 16, when I was lucky enough to do Russian GCSE alongside my A levels. I fel in love and went on to study Russian and German language and literature at Oxford University, spending every summer in Moscow and St Petersburg, traipsing around the many wonderful writers' house museums. I associate Russia with music and singing with friends around the kitchen table. About 10 years ago I taught Russian A level at a local school and it was a delight to devise grammar activities based on classic Soviet rock songs! 


 HOW DO BRIDGES WORK? contains some quite technical language to do with architecture and engineering. How do you tackle this?

I have a background in literature and history, not science and technology, and yet over the years I have translated a few popular science books. Part of the essential toolkit of a translator is excellent research skills and also a reliable network of expert friends to ask about terms and concepts when in doubt! I also think self-doubt as an underlying principle is important in translation: you need the confidence to tackle texts that are sometimes out of your comfort zone, but the self-doubt to check and double check everything! One thing I love about translation is the excuse to read books and texts about a vast range of subjects. You never know what you're going to be asked to work on so the best preparation for a translation career is to read constantly and read widely. 


Do you do any preliminary work to find the voice of the original author or do you like to approach the text without preconceptions?

It depends on the text and the target readership, and where on the spectrum the book fits: should it be written in a neutral nonfiction style or a more chatty, personal style, for example? With this book, it was most important that the text was clear, concise and accessible to younger readers, so at times I need to restructure a sentence or a paragraph to express the same ideas in a way that would be clear to young English readers. 

As a fan of foreign languages, are you learning any new languages at the moment? What’s next?

To say I love exploring foreign languages is an understatement! I was 24 when I started learning Arabic, and for the first decade or so I had to focus on that alone - Arabic is many languages in one, after all, when you consider how much the spoken dialects vary. But in recent years I've allowed myself time to dabble in other languages again. I'm slowly working on my Norwegian on Duolingo, as we have family in Bergen; as I'm a linguist I fear they're expecting me to be fluent by our next visit! I got a bit distracted by Yiddish after watching Unorthodox on Netflix - I'm instantly gripped by a language that is similar to one I already know well, and Yiddish is very close to German. I have family links to Malta and I was astonished when I started listening to Maltese podcasts and realised I could understand a lot because it's very close to colloquial Arabic, particularly the Palestinian and Syrian dialects I'm most familiar with. 


Foreign languages don’t always have the most consistent spot on the Curriculum, particularly in primary schools. How would you encourage children to take an interest in foreign languages?

This is a particular passion of mine and I'm working with the Stephen Spender Trust to develop teaching resources for primary schools, exploring creative translation in the classroom. These activities give pupils the satisfaction of codebreaking and working out how to read a creative text in a language they have no experience of, and then translating it as they would approach any creative writing task: writing freely but with certain constraints. Pupils discover language skills they didn't realise they had and make discoveries about English at the same time. 

Another way young people can explore our multilingual planet is to get involved in #WorldKidLitMonth, which is happening now in September. On social media, this is an initiative aimed at encouraging kids and adults to read beyond our shores, and to explore children's and YA books in translation from other languages. There are heaps of resources on World Kid Lit blog, a website I co-edit, including reading lists and maps for different age groups, and you can search the site by language and by country. We aim to make it easier than ever before to pick a place in the world and fly there by book! 


Finally, now that many of us are having to work from home or in new conditions, tell us about your workspace!  

My workspace actually hasn't changed as I have a home office; what is new is having to share it with my husband! But as we've had the children home from school throughout lockdown, we've worked shifts and haven't been in there at the same time. From September we might have to get another chair but to be honest I'm not sure I'll be able to share with him - I think I talk to myself too much when I'm translating! I have to read texts aloud to hear how they sound and as I'm currently editing my translation of a novel I'm forever acting out scenes to check it all fits together. I think I may be banished to the living room! 

A huge thank you to Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and to b small publishing for the opportunity.