©Victoria Issa
About
Victoria Issa is a freelance translator and writer from Jordan working between Arabic and English. She was the Arabic mentee at the 2024 National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Literary Translator Mentorships Programme, under the guidance of the fabulous Sawad Hussain.
She recently attended the BCLT International Literary Translation and Creative Writing Summer School 2024.
Victoria translates a wide array of genres, but she is particularly passionate about children’s literature, poetry, and narratives on migration and women. Her translations extend to other fields, including art, human rights, politics, public health, and news media.
Education and Work Experience
Victoria worked as a media analyst and translator, focusing primarily on Middle Eastern news media and humanitarian issues in the region.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in the English language and its literature from the University of Jordan, 2007.
She participated in a creative writing summer programme at Cambridge University in 2017, in addition to taking other online and in-person courses related to literature and writing, including those with the University of Iowa, among others.
Writing
She writes poetry, short fiction, and children’s stories in Arabic and English. My published works include the following:
- Two of her poems in English were published in Whitmanthology: On Loss and Grief, 2016.
- Two short stories in English were published in Womanthology: Writings on Women, 2017.
- She published short stories in Arabic anthologies: The Good People of Cairo, 2018, and Pandemic Talk, 2021.
- She published a children’s story in Arabic titled “Snow Girl” in the children’s magazine Al-Arabi al-Saghir, in 2023.
- She published her first children’s picture book in Arabic titled “Zaghloul” about a stray cat and the girl who rescues him, 2025.
Memberships
Member of the British Society of Authors and the Translators Association
Interviews
An interview in the BCLT newsletter, in which Victoria Issa talks about her literary translation journey.
Pen Presents x International Booker Prize Shortlist
On April 16, English Pen announced the shortlisted translators for the inaugural round of the PEN Presents x International Booker Prize, a grant program aimed at supporting translators from the Global Majority. Among the shortlisted translators is Victoria Issa Yacoub, recognized for her translation from the Arabic of The Light by Israa Kalash (Palestine).
Victoria Issa 