Angelina Jolie in the Mystery of the Missing Apostrophe

The publishers of a new book called From Our Lips to your Ears are looking for true personal anecdotes reflecting the everyday life of interpreters, with the aim of giving the general public a better idea of how interpreters touch people’s lives. The deadline for submission is the 3 December.

I like their guidelines for writing – it sounds like the kind of book I’d really like to read. They say:

Ideally, your story should accomplish one or more of the following things:

• Enable the reader to imagine the scene vividly

• Engage one or more of the five senses

• Evoke emotions

• Help the reader feel more connected to others
  

Their promotional tour currently only involves the US, but it would be great to have some perspectives from this side of the pond too. So, what do you say, interpreters? Sounds like a great chance to come out from behind the booth/ speaker.

Of course, I’d really love to see a similar collection of stories by translators. Or even better, a movie. No matter what you thought of The Interpreter, there’s no doubt that Nicole Kidman has done wonders for the profession in the glamour stakes.

I’m sure us translators could club something together to rival it. I can see it now: the obvious star would be Scarlett Johannsson (channelling glamour, a strong air of intelligence, and an artsy almost bookish air). My outside-the-box vote would go to Angelina Jolie (channelling a strong interest in current affairs, a career/family juggler, a go-it-alone type). Now for the difficult part – a nail-biting plot… hmmm… 🙂