I am 34 years old, born in Luxembourg of a French father and an Irish mother. I grew up in Luxembourg, and remained there until I was 18 years old, at which time I went off to live in Scotland and take a four-year MA course in History and Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, from which I graduated in 1997. Although I had not set out to become a translator, it was an obvious line of work to explore when I was looking for a job in Dublin in 1998, as I am naturally bilingual in French and English.

Most of the work I found myself doing over the following 18 months was as an interpreter, within the context of interviews held by the Irish Department of Justice for the processing of asylum applications submitted by French-speaking refugees, most of whom hailed from North, West and Central Africa. In 2000 I decided to pursue my interest in development and humanitarian issues, and travelled to Kosovo on the advice of a friend who worked there, with the intention of finding work within one of the many international organizations operating in the region at the time. As it turned out, I was offered a position as a translator/interpreter for the Department of Legal Affairs of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which I accepted. I spent the next 15 months working at Mitrovica Courthouse, mostly translating investigation and situation reports issued by the French Army for the UN's international judiciary, and occasionally interpreting during the course of trials or of meetings between representatives of the French Army and UN-appointed international judges. I returned to Dublin in late 2001 and began working as a freelance translator/interpreter, which has been my occupation ever since. I went back to Scotland for a few years, before deciding I'd had enough of the quasi-Arctic climate and moving to the sunnier climes of southwestern France.

I am currently living in Massachusetts, USA, with my wife, four cats and a ferret.