Category Archive: Translator

I’m delighted to announce the release of an album of my choral music recorded by the critically acclaimed London Choral Sinfonia under Michael Waldron: https://orchid-music.lnk.to/theworldtome In the sleeve notes, he writes: ‘I first came across Simon’s music several years ago. I was initially grabbed by a setting of Advent Calendar – a setting of a […]

Rilke wrote Das Marien-Leben at the castle at Duino, on the Italian Adriatic coast, in late 1911 and early 1912, just before he began work on what was to become the monumental Duineser Elegien.  In the preface to his translation in 1951, Stephen Spender notes that ‘Rilke wrote of the Marien-Leben as being “a little […]

Some exciting news this week: I have had my first piece published, by the excellent Encore Publications. The piece, The Angel and the Unicorn, I blogged about once before, after I had written it during lockdown back in 2020. At the time, it still hadn’t been performed, but now it has, by the Choir of […]

I wrote last month about my latest translation, Clouds over Paris, which I’m delighted was chosen by Hatchards as its non-fiction Book of the Month, and has been featured in The New European. I also wrote about the book for Hatchards’ blog, the text of which I thought I would reproduce here. In September 1952, […]

I mentioned last time my recent trip to Minnesota. I got back just in time to experience the two hottest days in UK history (phew!), before heading off to Paris for a few days. It was years since I’d been, although I felt I had been exploring the city in absentia thanks to my latest […]

Attentive readers will have noticed that there was no blogpost last week. I was in York, teaching at YABS, the York Antiquarian Book Seminar: three-and-a-half days talking about books and bookselling to some wonderfully engaged students keen to know more. It’s always an enjoyable few days, and this year particularly so as going away to […]