On Writing a Translator's Biography: Bringing Barbara Bray out of the Archives

Abstract

Barbara Bray (1924-2010) was an outstanding woman of letters – radio producer and editor in the 1950s, writer and journalist in the 1960s, screenwriter in the 1970s, theatre director in the 1990s, and translator during all that time. Even though Bray played a crucial part in Beckett's creative process across three decades, she was also one of his most obscure collaborators. In this essay, I reflect upon the writing of her biography, focusing on some of the theoretical points that surfaced when trying to make a female creator come out of the shadows. I discuss the methodological and ethical choices made in the composition of the monograph, and highight the feminist intention presiding over its writing as well as the paradoxes revealed while doing so.