Andrew Hodges
We will publicise a member profile every Monday here on our website, on our Facebook page, on Twitter @NWTN_UK and on LinkedIn. We are starting off with the committee members, but we hope you will all join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members.
Where do you live/work?
Mostly in Poynton, Cheshire at present – with occasional trips to Germany and the Balkans.
Are you mainly a translator or interpreter or both? What languages?
I translate Croatian- and German-English. I don’t work as an interpreter, but I am also trained as an academic copyeditor.
What are your specialist fields?
Academic translation and political/policy reports. I also translate exhibition materials for museums in Croatia.
What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?
The most interesting is a recent translation of feminist essays on Rosa Luxemburg. The oddest was perhaps an exhibition on sweet desserts found on the Croatian island of Hvar – I also got to taste some of the exhibits!
Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation career:
On a personal level – moving to full-time freelance. On a social level – translating refugee testimonies for a human rights case launched against certain Croatian police practices.
Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:
I love working with language everyday and I love having the freedom to work from home and organise my time as I wish. (yes, a boring reply, but true!)
What is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?
I completed ethnographic fieldwork on issues relating to language standardisation in a primary school in rural Serbia, where a minority Croatian stream had been set up. I attended classes with the pupils for a semester and wrote about how the recent drive towards a new Croatian standard was experienced by people living there. This included lots of arguing against purist and prescriptivist positions!
What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?
I want to continue building my portfolio in academic translation and editorial (book) projects with emerging and established authors in the social sciences and humanities, especially authors based in Central Eastern Europe. I would also love to move into editing and translating fiction as well.
Tell us something not many people know about you:
I love listening to ambient/electronic music while I translate…my favourite artists are Biosphere and Stars of the Lid.
