Literary translation has been absent from ITI Conference for quite some time and we thought the venue was the ideal opportunity to put this right with the help of one of Britain’s favourite crime fiction authors. We are absolutely delighted that North-East based author Ann Cleeves has accepted our invitation and will be with us, in conversation with Karen Seago, on Friday 24 April.

Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s VERA and BBC One’s SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.

The link with translation? Ann’s reading passion has been translated crime fiction since she first read Henning Mankell many years ago. She managed Inter-Crime, an Arts Council funded project to bring European fiction to readers in Yorkshire libraries and for three years she was chair of judges for the CWA International Dagger.  Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Ann will be available to sign books after the session.

Read more about Ann Cleeves, her novels and their translations on www.anncleeves.com