About

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.

Tim's headshot

I have written 9 books to date translating Robert Desnos, Victor Hugo, Jean Cassou, Alfonso Reyes, and Alberto Arvelo Torrelba.

Other favourites are Brecht, Sikelianós, Nerval, Louise Labé, Ricarda Huch, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Hans/Jean Arp.

I was a King’s Scholar at Eton College, won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1959 and then attended Balliol College, Oxford and at INSEAD, Fontainebleau. I am a member of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Trustee of Agenda poetry magazine.

My awards include the John Dryden Prize and the TLS Premio Valle–Inclán Prize.

My Poems – mostly translations

This site has a ‘Poems‘ section 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.

My books

Read more on my books page and the critical appreciation page.

Alfonso Reyes, Miracle of Mexico: Shearsman Books, 2019. Bilingual Spanish/English. 'Robert Desnos, Surrealist, Lover, Resistant', Arc Publications, June 2017. The most exciting French poet of the last century! Massive, definitive bilingual book of his poems. front cover of Hugo, The Big Story of the Lion front cover of Jean Cassou, The Madness of Amadis front cover of Jean Cassou, 33 Sonnets front cover of Victor Hugo, How to be a Grandfather front cover of Storysongs/Chantefables front cover of Torrealba, Florentino and the Devil front cover of Loving by Will