About

Juggling words, juggling languages…

Born with a paintbrush in one hand and a pen in the other, I started creating and telling stories at a very young age. Even then, I knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.

My love of languages budded shortly thereafter. It started with a passionate devotion to English, which I studied at university with a focus on literature, language, and culture.

On my path to learning languages, I studied abroad in Germany. This decision vastly widened my horizons and changed my life. It’s at this time that I took steps towards becoming a literary translator.

After two years in Münster, Germany, I moved to Edinburgh. For eighteen months, I lived and worked in the Scottish capital city, gaining experience both as a French language teacher and translator. Upon my return to Germany, I continued to freelance in these fields until becoming an intern translator at a language agency. This experience taught me a lot and quickly improved my professional skills. Some time and an agency later, my adventures as a translator took me to Vancouver in the Canadian far west.

After two years of valuable job experience, I once again settled in Germany in 2019, this time, as a freelance translator with years of agency work under my belt. All the while, I was dedicating more and more of my time to my own literary dreams. Now, with three literary translations and several translations of travel and art photo books, I am more motivated than ever to continue on this path. I recently finished writing my first novel and am currently actively searching for an interested francophone publisher. My second novel is in the works!

At the end of the day, am I a writer or a literary translator? Why choose? For me, being both complements and completes each other.

That’s me: Virginie Pironin. Writer and translator.