about the translator

drawing by Sander Rike (aged 6)

Ina Rilke was born in Mozambique and grew up in Portugal, speaking Dutch, English and Portuguese. She was educated at the Oporto British School, and obtained a degree in Translation Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Until 1997 she combined free-lance translation of art-historical texts with teaching translation at the University of Amsterdam.

For the past twenty-five years she has concentrated on literary translation from Dutch and French into English, for which she has won the Vondel Prize, the Scott Moncrieff Prize and the Flemish Culture Prize.

She lives in Amsterdam and Paris.