Anthea Bell facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Anthea Bell OBE
Bell in January 2015
Born	(1936-05-10)10 May 1936 Suffolk, England
Died	18 October 2018(2018-10-18) (aged 82) Cambridge, England
Nationality	British
Education	Somerville College, University of Oxford
Occupation	Translator
Years active	1960–2015
Known for	Asterix stories translation
Spouse(s)	Antony Kamm ​ ​ (m. 1957; div. 1973)​
Children	2; including Oliver
Parent(s)	Adrian Bell (father)
Relatives	Martin Bell (brother)

Anthea Bell (born May 10, 1936 – died October 18, 2018) was a famous English translator. She was known for taking books and stories written in other languages, like French, German, and Danish, and turning them into English. She translated many different kinds of books, including popular children's stories and classic novels.

Who Was Anthea Bell?

Anthea Bell with her son Oliver Kamm in 2015

Anthea Bell was born in a place called Suffolk, England, on May 10, 1936. Her father, Adrian Bell, was a writer and also created crossword puzzles for a newspaper. Anthea said she learned how to think creatively, which is very important for a translator, from her dad. Her mother, Marjorie Bell, took care of their home. Anthea also had a brother named Martin Bell, who became a well-known reporter for the BBC.

Anthea went to a special school in Bournemouth and then studied English at Somerville College, Oxford, which is a famous university. She was married to a publisher and writer named Antony Kamm from 1957 to 1973. They had two sons, Richard and Oliver. Her son Oliver Kamm later became a writer for The Times newspaper. After her sons grew up, Anthea lived and worked in Cambridge. She passed away on October 18, 2018, when she was 82 years old.

Her Amazing Work as a Translator

Anthea Bell started her career as a translator in the late 1950s. A German publisher asked her husband if he knew anyone who could translate a children's book called Der kleine Wassermann. Her husband suggested Anthea, and her English version, The Little Water Sprite, was published in 1960. She ended up translating all the books by that author, Otfried Preußler.

Translating Comics and Children's Books

Anthea became very famous for translating many French comic books into English. One of her most loved projects was the Asterix series. People praised her translations because she was great at creating new jokes and puns in English that kept the funny spirit of the original French stories. A professor named Peter Hunt said her translations were "ingenious" and showed how amazing a translator's art can be.

She also translated other popular comic books like Le Petit Nicolas, Lieutenant Blueberry, and Iznogoud.

Anthea was especially good at translating children's literature. She re-translated the classic fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen from Danish. She also translated the popular Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke and the Ruby Red Trilogy by Kerstin Gier.

Translating Books for Adults

Besides children's books, Anthea also translated many novels for adults, as well as books about art and music. She translated important works by authors like W. G. Sebald, including his famous novel Austerlitz. She also translated The Pianist, a true story by Władysław Szpilman.

Her translations of books by Stefan Zweig helped many English-speaking readers discover his work. She also translated a book by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann called The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. In 2003, she translated a book by Sigmund Freud called The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. She also translated Franz Kafka's The Castle in 2009.

Anthea believed in "invisible" translation. This means she wanted her translations to feel so natural that readers would forget they were reading a translated book. She wanted it to feel like the book was originally written in English.

For her amazing work, Anthea Bell received several important honors. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010. This is a special award from the British Queen for people who have done great things. In 2015, she also received the Cross of Merit from Germany.

Later Life and Passing

In 2017, Anthea Bell's son, Oliver Kamm, shared that his mother had become ill and had to move to a nursing home. He said that her "great mind" was no longer as it used to be. Because of her illness, she could not translate the 37th Asterix book, Asterix and the Chariot Race. Another translator, Adriana Hunter, took over. At the end of that book, the publishers included a special thank you message to Anthea Bell for all her wonderful translation work on Asterix over the years.

Anthea Bell passed away on October 18, 2018, at the age of 82.

Awards and Recognition

Anthea Bell won many awards for her translations. Here are some of the notable ones:

• 1987 – Schlegel-Tieck Prize for The Stone and the Flute
• 1996 – Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for A Dog's Life
• 2002 – Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz
• 2002 – Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz
• 2002 – Schlegel-Tieck Prize for W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz
• 2003 – Schlegel-Tieck Prize for Rain
• 2003 – Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for Where Were You Robert?
• 2007 – Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for The Flowing Queen
• 2009 – Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
• 2009 – Schlegel-Tieck Prize for Stefan Zweig's Burning Secret
• 2017 – Eric Carle Museum Bridge Award for her contributions to children's literature

Mildred L. Batchelder Award

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award is a special award given to a publisher for a children's book that was originally published in another country and then translated into English. The goal of this award is to help people from different cultures understand each other better through books.

Anthea Bell has been recognized for more books than anyone else in the history of this award! This shows how important her work was in bringing stories from Germany, France, and Denmark to English-speaking children.

See also

In Spanish: Anthea Bell para niños