Born in Derry in 1961, but resident in Scotland since 1970, Donal McLaughlin is a freelance writer and translator (from German, mainly). Scottish PEN’s first ècrivain sans frontières and a recent recipient of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award, Donal has also represented the City of Glasgow in both Berne (Scottish Writing Fellow) and Nuremberg (Hermann Kesten Fellow). Read More Known for his short stories, a number of which have already appeared in translation, he has published the collections An Allergic Reaction to National Anthems and Beheading the Virgin Mary. His translation work includes collaborating with Chris Dolan on a stage version of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader; Shards, a bilingual edition of the poetry of Stella Rotenberg (with Stephen Richardson); twenty-nine of the forty-five writers in New Swiss Writing 2008; and twenty-five of the forty writers in New Swiss Writing 2009. He has also edited selections of contemporary writing from Slovenia (with Janice Galloway), Latvia, and Scotland.