About Timothy Adès
Timothy Adès, born 1941, has degrees in classics and international business. He translates mainly French, German and Spanish poems into English, tending to work with rhyme and metre.
His three books to date are:
- Victor Hugo, [poems from] How to be a Grandfather, Hearing Eye 2002;
- Jean Cassou, 33 Sonnets of the Resistance (composed and memorised in a Vichy prison), Arc Publications 2002;
- Cassou, The Madness of Amadis, Agenda Editions 2008.
See a full list of Timothy Adès’s publications.
Other favourites are Brecht, and the Mexican, Alfonso Reyes; Sikelianós, Nerval, Louise Labé, Ricarda Huch, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Hans/Jean Arp; and most of all, Robert Desnos, 1900–45, the most exciting French poet of the last century.
Timothy’s awards include the John Dryden Prize and the TLS Premio Valle–Inclán Prize.
Events
Tmothy will be selling books of poetry in translation, hand–picked, at the Arts & Crafts Fair at Lauderdale House, Highgate Hill, London N6; next date: Sunday 27 May, 11am to 6pm.
Timothy read at the University of East Anglia on Tuesday 24 April 2012, accompanied by Moniza Alvi, Donald Gardner and Martin Sorrell.
Timothy has read solo at the Suffolk Poetry Society, the Kent and Sussex Poetry Society, at Mayfield for Agenda, and around London, and has participated in readings at the Universities of East Anglia and Newcastle.
He has appeared three times at the Institut Français, and organised a translator panel at the Torbay Festival, 2009.
Read more about poetry events involving Timothy Adès.
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Translating Poetry
“I like to work with rhyme and metre, as in the original. This was a very long poem, in translator hours. It was a joy to find so many happy co–incidences, so many rhymes, some ordinary, some curious and unforeseeable. ‘Wake you’ with ‘vehicle’! So many twists and turns and lucky escapes, thanks to the mighty English language.”
Read the full article by Timothy Adès.
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Critical Opinion
On Victor Hugo How to be a Grandfather:
“[Often] one forgets that one is reading a translation at all … This is great poetry of childhood, and …, not co–incidentally, it is among the finest poetry of old age … I strongly recommend [it] for the accomplishment of the translator and for the thought–provoking quality of much of what is translated.”
— Glyn Pursglove
Read more critical appreciation of Timothy Adès’s work.