Translator of the month!

Published on July 20, 2014

inside cafébabel

Cafébabel: De­scribe your­self in three words…

Ac­tive, de­tail-ori­ented, en­thu­si­as­tic

CB: What do you do in life in terms of work/study?

I work in media af­fairs, par­tic­u­larly with EU-re­lated pro­jects. This in­volves media mon­i­tor­ing, draft­ing and edit­ing po­lit­i­cal re­ports and var­i­ous texts, and prepar­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies. I also work as a free­lance jour­nal­ist, ed­i­tor and trans­la­tor and I fre­quently write (re­flec­tions, fic­tion, po­etry) on my blog. Of course I never stop learn­ing, par­tic­u­larly lan­guages, and have set it as my tar­get to learn Por­tuguese.

CB: What’s your favourite dish?

Green beans cooked in tomato sauce with pota­toes and served with feta cheese.

CB: Your favourite Eu­ro­pean na­tion­al­ity? Why?

I would say any Mediter­ranean na­tion­al­ity – Greek, Span­ish, Ital­ian. I think these na­tion­al­i­ties have a more au­then­tic take on what life is all about and no mat­ter their trou­bles still man­age to sur­vive and enjoy those lit­tle things that make life worth­while.

CB: When did you do your first trans­la­tion for Cafébabel?

25 May 2014. It was an ar­ti­cle writ­ten by a friend I met dur­ing the EU­topia Stras­bourg pro­ject and what made it so spe­cial was that I ac­tu­ally got to ex­pe­ri­ence the agony be­hind the re­search be­fore the writ­ing process could occur.

CB: The cra­zi­est dream you’ve ever had?With eyes open or closed? I tend to dream a lot both awake and asleep. While awake I would say the cra­zi­est dream would be to travel the world non-stop while writ­ing (some­thing which I still want to do). While asleep, it would be run­ning through a flam­ing smoky build­ing with a lit­tle bunny in my arms.

CB: In one word, what does Cafébabel mean to you?

Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism.

CB: If you had to choose a favourite Cafébabel mag­a­zine sec­tion, ar­ti­cle and au­thor…

This is a tough one. My favourite Cafébabel mag­a­zine sec­tion is So­ci­ety, al­though I also enjoy read­ing the Pol­i­tics sec­tion as well. I don’t have a favourite ar­ti­cle as I have read many that are truly ex­cep­tional. Same goes for favourite au­thor too, al­though I par­tic­u­larly liked Alexan­der Dami­ano Ricci’s style, there are many oth­ers with ex­cel­lent con­tri­bu­tions.

CB: The most stu­pid thing you’ve done in your life?

When I was very young my grand­mother was iron­ing and she left the iron stand­ing for a minute to go to the kitchen. She told me specif­i­cally not to touch it be­cause it is hot. You didn’t need to tell me twice. I pressed my palm straight onto the burn­ing iron. That’s some­thing (stu­pid) I will never do again.

CB: The best place you’ve been in Eu­rope so far? Why is it the best?

I think the en­tire con­ti­nent is an amaz­ing place. If I had to sin­gle out one place I would say Vi­enna. It has some­thing regal about it, as if of an­other era, and you can feel its ma­jes­tic air en­cir­cle you from the minute you ar­rive.

CB: A city in Eu­rope you would like to visit… Why do you want to go there?

Just one? There are so many! Prague and Bu­dapest top the list. I have heard so much about these beau­ti­ful cities that I have to go and see my­self. Plus they be­long to coun­tries that have man­aged to keep a “qui­eter” pro­file com­pared to say France or Spain or Ger­many and thus it may be dif­fi­cult to get to know a lot about what goes on there un­less you ac­tu­ally visit them first-hand.

CB: What does Eu­rope mean to you?

Eu­rope means free­dom to travel, make friends and ex­pand your fam­ily. It means being able to widen your hori­zons and un­der­stand that de­spite the di­ver­sity we are in fact stronger when united.