Elisabeth L. Guillerm

Hi! I’m Elisabeth, a French literary translator since 2021. I believe my passion for literary translation comes from three things:

First of all, my unconditional love for books. I remember with some nostalgia that, as a child, I used to keep reading in secret almost every night, long after my parents’ “lights out”. I even managed to remove the headlight from my bicycle in order to read quietly under the blanket.

Then, being fascinated by reading as a means of escape, I slowly started to nurture a passion for writing in high school. Instrumental music and art are also huge sources of inspiration for me. I have been writing a fantasy tetralogy for many years now, and I hope it will be published one day. But as I like to say, it’s the journey that matters most, not the destination.

Finally, my love for foreign languages – especially English and German – led me to become interested in translation a few months before graduating from high school, when I realised there was a wonderful job that combines languages, writing, and a rather solitary life.

I come from Brest, Britanny, where I spent the first eighteen years of my life. In 2016-17, I experienced a wonderful Erasmus year in Leipzig, Germany, during my Bachelor’s degree in Applied Foreign Languages at Université de Bretagne Occidentale. Finally, I obtained my Master’s degree in translation at Université d’Orléans in 2020. My best achievement this year was a research paper on the French translation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire that I really enjoyed writing. Since 2021, I am proud to have translated novels and a non-fiction work for Gallmeister, Aux Forges de Vulcain, Larousse Jeunesse (Comet), and En Exergue. The Girl in the Water (Submergée) is one of the translations I am working on in 2025, and I am looking forward to seeing the final result!