Sarah Ardizzone is a translator from the French with forty-something titles to her name. Her work spans picture books, graphic novels and travel memoirs as well as children’s, young adult and literary fiction. Notable authors include Alexandre Dumas (a fresh version of The Nutcracker), Faïza Guène, the outspoken young French-Algerian voice from the banlieue, and former ‘dunce’ Daniel Pennac, whose autobiographical polemics about education are illustrated by Quentin Blake. Twice recipient of the Marsh award, she has won the Scott-Moncrieff prize and a New York Times notable book accolade. A research grant from the French Book Office supported her interest in translating sharp dialogue, urban and migrant slang, and in what tri-continental writer Alain Mabanckou, from Congo-Brazzaville, calls ‘a world literature in French’. This led to a stint in the Algerian quarter of Marseille and contributions to the Guardian and Michael Rosen’s Word of Mouth (BBC Radio 4). More recently, her stage adaptation of Bessora and Barroux’s Alpha – a graphic diary from Ivory Coast to Paris – opened the migrant stories strand at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.