Helen Vassallo

Helen Vassallo is Associate Professor of French and Translation at the University of Exeter (United Kingdom). Her primary research interests are in translated literature and feminism, with a focus on contemporary women's writing and theory. She translates Francophone women's writing, with a particular focus on North Africa and the Middle East: most recently, she has translated Darina Al Joundi's The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing (2022) and its sequel Marseillaise My Way (2022). Helen's...See more

Helen Vassallo is Associate Professor of French and Translation at the University of Exeter (United Kingdom). Her primary research interests are in translated literature and feminism, with a focus on contemporary women's writing and theory. She translates Francophone women's writing, with a particular focus on North Africa and the Middle East: most recently, she has translated Darina Al Joundi's The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing (2022) and its sequel Marseillaise My Way (2022). Helen's translation of selected non-fiction by Prix Goncourt-winning author Le�la Slimani, The Devil Is in the Detail and Other Stories , will be published in 2023, and she is currently working on a translation of Darina Al Joundi's Prisoner of the Levant , a fictionalised biography of the pioneering Arab feminist May Ziadeh. Helen is the founder of Translating Women, an industry-facing research project that engages with publishers, translators, and other stakeholders to work against intersectional gender bias in the translated literature sector of the UK publishing industry. She writes regular reviews and opinion pieces for the Translating Women blog, as well as freelance pieces elsewhere, and she tweets about the project at @translatewomen. See less