Ruth Martin
Translator
About
Ruth Martin is a literary translator working from German into English. She has translated more than 25 books, ranging from children’s poems to academic monographs. Her focus in recent years has been on fiction by women writers, and on stories of migration and life between cultures. Publications include Shida Bazyar’s The Nights are Quiet in Tehran (Scribe, 2025), and Iris Wolff’s Clearing (Moth Books, 2026). She was one of eight translators who worked collaboratively on Angela Merkel’s memoir, Freedom (Macmillan, 2024).
Together with Nino Haratischwili and co-translator Charlotte Collins, Ruth won the 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, for Haratischwili’s epic novel The Eighth Life. She has twice been longlisted for the International Booker prize.
Ruth also teaches translation at all levels. She has led workshops for GCSE and A-Level students, taught undergraduates in the German department at the University of Kent, and been a tutor at the Bristol Translates summer school for early-career professionals. Recently, she has started giving talks about the craft and the business of literary translation to book clubs and bookshop audiences, hoping to convince readers of the need for human translators in a world saturated with AI.
Although resident on the north Kent coast for the last ten years, Ruth grew up in Cornwall and has a lifelong fascination with Cornish history and folklore. She goes back often to visit family and walk the coast paths.