Biographical information

DAVID CONNOLLY was born in Sheffield, England and is of Irish descent. He has lived and worked in Greece since 1979 and acquired Greek citizenship in 1998.

He studied Ancient Greek at the University of Lancaster (1974-77), Medieval and Modern Greek Literature at Trinity College, Oxford (1977-79) and received his doctoral degree from the University of East Anglia (1997) for a dissertation on “The (Im)Possibility of Poetry Translation. Factors in an Approach to Translating the Poetry of Odysseus Elytis”. He also holds professional diplomas in the teaching of English as a foreign language to adults (The Royal Society of Arts 1984) and in translation (Institute of Linguists 1992). He is a regular member of several professional associations of translators and writers in the UK and in Greece (The Translator’s Association, The Hellenic Authors’ Society, etc.).

He was for several years Head of Translation at the British Council, Athens (1991-1994) and has also taught translation at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels at several Greek universities (The Ionian University 1991-1997, The University of Athens 1999-2000, The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki 2003-2005). He is currently Professor of Translation Studies in the School of English at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has also acted as external examiner for several UK universities with post-graduate translation programmes (University of Surrey, UMIST). In addition, he has held honorary academic posts at the University of Birmingham (Honorary Research Fellow 1999-2002), the University of Princeton (Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Fellow 2001) and the University of Oxford (Hellenic Foundation Visiting Fellow in Modern Greek Studies 2002).

Since 1993, he has published over fifty academic articles on various aspects of translation theory and practice and on Greek literature in general, together with two volumes of studies on translating poetry. During the same period, he has given numerous lectures, talks and seminars on translation and Greek literature at academic institutions in Greece and Cyprus (the Ionian University, the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki, the University of Cyprus), in the UK (the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, East Anglia, Surrey, Essex and Belfast) and in North America (the Universities of Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Boston and Montreal). In addition, he has given many television, radio and newspaper interviews on various topics relating to translation and Greek literature and has also given readings of Greek literature in translation in the UK (The Royal Festival Hall Voice Box, The Barbican Centre, The University of Manchester Poetry Centre, The Hellenic Centre, etc.)

As a professional freelance translator for over twenty-five years, he has been commissioned by individual authors and publishing companies to translate numerous literary works (novels, short stories, poetry, theatrical works and film scripts) and he has equally translated a wide range of non-literary works (academic works on philosophy and history, art albums, art criticism, literary criticism, exhibition and museum catalogues). He has also undertaken regular translation work for a number of Greek organisations and companies and, in particular, for the Greek Ministry of Culture (Department of Letters), translating, among other things, Greece’s entries for the ARISTEION European Literary Prize over the five-year period 1995-2000, and for the National Book Centre of Greece, translating, among other things, the Centre’s bimonthly review of Greek books, Ithaca (issues 1-11).

As a literary translator, he has published some thirty-five books of translations of work by major 20th-century Greek poets, novelists and short-story writers. In addition, he has guest-edited a special Greek issue of the literary magazine Agenda (“Greek Poetry: New Voices and Ancient Echoes”), which contains a 250-page anthology of translations of ancient and contemporary Greek poetry and has also edited an anthology of literary works by members of the Hellenic Authors' Society (Greek Writers Today Vol. I). He has contributed with translations of numerous poems and short stories to many anthologies and literary magazines in the UK and USA (Agenda, London Magazine, In Other Words, Modern Poetry In Translation, Poetry Review, Leviathan, Atlanta Review, Filling Station, MondoGreco, The Charioteer, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, Greece in Print, Asylum, Words Without Borders, Free Verse, Greek Letters, Poetry Greece, Hellenic Quarterly, Ithaca, etc.). His translations have won awards in Greece, the UK and the USA.