Welcome to my website!
My name is Timothy Adès. I was born in 1941 and have degrees in classics and international business. I translate mainly French, German and Spanish poems into English, tending to work with rhyme and metre.
My nine books to date are:
- Alfonso Reyes, Miracle of Mexico: Shearsman Books, 2019. Bilingual Spanish/English.
- Robert Desnos, Surrealist, Lover, Resistant : 527 pages, bilingual text, his poems with my versions. From Arc Publications.
- Robert Desnos, Storysongs/Chantefables: for good children to sing to any tune: with translations by Timothy Adès and illustrations by Cat Zaza. Agenda Editions, 2014. Fully bilingual, double–fronted book.
- Victor Hugo, How to be a Grandfather, Hearing Eye, 2012
- new complete edition, revised and enlarged;
- English only. Rhyming text, introduction, lifeline, notes;
- extras: other poems by Hugo; Hugo as seen by other poets.
- Jean Cassou, 33 Sonnets of the Resistance (composed and memorised in a Vichy prison), Arc Publications, second edition, 2005; bilingual facing text; and other poems
- Cassou, The Madness of Amadis, Agenda Editions, 2008; bilingual; and other poems
- Hugo, The Big Story of the Lion, Hearing Eye, 2014: a poem from Grandfather: fold-out, with art by Emily Johns
- Alberto Arvelo, Florentino and the Devil, Shearsman, 2014: cattlemen of Venezuela, rapid-rhyming duel: bilingual
- Loving by Will, Dempsey & Windle, 2016: Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets with my versions alongside, not using letter e. Much easier to follow!
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 was a King’s Scholar at Eton College, won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1959 and then attended Balliol College, Oxford and at INSEAD, Fontainebleau.
Timothy’s awards include the John Dryden Prize and the TLS Premio Valle–Inclán Prize.
My Poems – mostly translations
This site has a section headed ‘Poems’ which is being expanded. Many more of my poems can be found on BRINDINPRESS, alongside the original foreign texts. I’m easily found there under Translators.