Anthea Bell and Boyd Tonkin

The photos show, from top to bottom, Anthea Bell signing books after her discussion with Boyd Tonkin; with Melissa from Pushkin Press; signing again and with Melissa. The Methodist Church was full (you can see the cross just over Melissa's shoulder). Pushkin Press produce the most beautiful paperback editions of literature in translation and have published many of Stefan Zweig's books, translated by Anthea Bell - for a look at their superb catalgue see here.
The other small publisher whose books we stocked for the evening is Arabia and Haus
publishing, who publish Rafik Schami. Schami was born in Syria but has lived in political exile in Germany since 1970. He is the winner of numerous international prizes and is among Germany's bestselling novelists - Anthea Bell has translated two of his books, The Dark Side of Love and The Calligrapher's Secret, and she picked out the former as one of her favourite translations. Her most recent translation for Haus is The Indies Enterprise by Erik Orsenna which is coming out very soon (we have early copies here - it is a fantastic story of the effects of discovery.

Boyd Tonkin asked excellent questions and, while Anthea was modestly describing her work as craftsmanship, he declared she was like Yehudi Menuhin, a virtuoso able to bring writers to life in another language. We were lucky to hear her.

On 9 October 2011 at the French Institute Anthea Bell will be sharing her passion for translation, and her experience of taking on upfront the most challenging of them all, the very Gallic Asterix!
Book online on http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/bdandcomicspassion/