Mayela Gerhardt – Translator

I am an experienced literary translator, passionate about my work, detail-oriented and reliable. With each book I translate from English, Spanish or French, I immerse myself fully in its setting, tone and characters to create a German version that is true to the original work. I have translated books by authors such as Priya Guns, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Sepúlveda, Gary Shteyngart, Janet MacLeod Trotter, Pilar Quintana, Kat Gordon, Eloísa Díaz, Diana Evans, Margo Lanagan, Karl Geary, Luiza Sauma, Laurent Binet, Josse Gaëlle and Joe Dunthorne for major German and Swiss publishers like Hoffmann & Campe, Kampa, Rowohlt and Aufbau Verlag.

Born in Mexico to German parents, my interest for different cultures, languages and literatures was kindled at an early age. I was brought up in Latin America and Germany and moved to Barcelona in 2014. Working from an international Coworking space, I am continuously keeping in touch with my mother tongue (German) and the languages I translate from.

My field of expertise are both fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on novels and travel literature. I hold a Diploma in literary translation (equivalent to a Master's degree) from the University of Duesseldorf, have studied Modern English Literature at the University of Westminster in London, audiovisual translation at Trágora Professional School of Translating and Interpreting, Granada, as well as journalistic translation at ISTRAD (Instituto Superior de Estudios Lingüísticos y Traducción), Sevilla.

I am a member of the German Literary Translators' Association (VdÜ) and the Spanish Society of Modern Languages (SELM) and I regularly attend their seminars and webinars in order to stay up to date and to improve my skills in the field of creative translation.

Are you an author, an editor or a book publisher wishing to publish their book in German? I would be delighted to hear from you. You can rest assured that I will treat your book with great care and provide you with a translation that respects and represents the original work.