Meet the BookBlast® Diary Contributors — incisive voices with a flair for curating indulgent reads for independent minds
Nick Caistor is a translator, journalist and author of non-fiction who has translated more than forty novels from Spanish, Portuguese and French, winning the Valle-Inclán Prize twice. A leading mediator of contemporary Latin American and European literature into English, he has written biographies of Castro, Che Guevara and Octavio Paz, as well as books about Mexico City, Buenos Aires and the Mayan world. He has worked extensively with BBC Radio and contributes to the TLS and The Guardian. He lives in Norwich.
Clem Clement is the translator from French of Blackout by Yann Chateigné Tytelman (Les Fugitives, 2025) and of a chapter from the poly-translation Chicanes by Clara Schulmann (2023). Armed with a degree in French and Farsi from the University of Oxford, Clem now calls London home and works for various literary indie publishers.
Emily Unwin is a queer writer from the Deep South. She was endorsed by Arts Council England to live and work in the UK under the Global Talent Visa, with Exceptional Promise in Literature. She currently works as the programme manager for Granta Writers’ Workshop.
Ekaterina Drozdovica was social media coordinator at BookBlast until recently, collaborating in the promotion of the Translation Book Club which meets on the second Monday of each month at iconic bookshop Hatchards, Piccadilly. She also runs social media for Untold Narratives, a development programme for writers marginalised by community or conflict, including a network of Afghan women writers. A bilingual reader in English and Russian, Ekaterina is a passionate advocate for literature in translation.
Sharif Gemie is a retired Professor in Modern & Contemporary History and and co-author of The Hippie Trail: A History. He specialised in researching the histories of marginalized and mobile peoples, including refugees, migrants and travellers. Now retired, he is an avid reader and is writing fiction. His first novel The Displaced is published by Abergavenny Small Press.
Rachel Goldblatt worked as an intern at BookBlast during lockdown. She is now an Associate Agent at Curtis Brown working with Jonathan Lloyd, and is actively building her own list of fiction writers. (She is NOT looking for YA, fantasy or science fiction.)
Born in Glasgow, Andrew McDougall studied at the University of Edinburgh and now translates into English from Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan. His work includes a co-translation of Paradise and Other Hells by José Eduardo Agualusa and translating a children’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers. He translated a chapter by Ana Cristina Silva as part of the ‘Escape Goat’ project, on which he also collaborated as an editor. He has also translated children’s books by Rocio Bonilla, Oriol Canosa and Jacobo Feijóo, as wlel as short fiction by Nara Vidal, Clodie Vasli, Cuti among others.
Victor Meadowcroft is a translator from Spanish and Portuguese and a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s MA in literary translation. His work includes Río Muerto by Ricardo Silva Romero (World Editions); Toño the Infallible by Evelio Rosero (co-translated with Anne McLean, New Directions), a finalist for major US and UK translation prizes; and Natalia García Freire’s This World Does Not Belong to Us (Oneworld/World Editions), also shortlisted for multiple awards. He co-chairs the Portuguese-English Literary Translators Association (PELTA).
Zoe Milton is social media manager at BookBlast, as well as a reviewer with a keen eye for contemporary voices and global literary trends. She is a recent graduate of the University of Edinburgh with First Class Honours in Italian and English Literature, including a year at the University of Bologna studying comparative literature. With a dissertation on the rise of Italo-Disco and a strong interest in 21st-century fiction and translation, Zoe brings both academic rigour and cultural curiosity to her writing. She has contributed to various student publications in Edinburgh.
Rosa Picard worked as an intern at HAY Academy during Hay Festival, as a freelance reader for London Literary Scouts and then as an intern at Les Fugitives independent press, through which she was introduced to BookBlast® CIC. She now works as an editorial assistant at Ithaka Press, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK, while also developing her own freelance writing practice. Her short fiction piece will appear in A Rabbit’s Foot, in November this year. Rosa is excited about her career in the literary world!
Lucy Popescu is a writer, editor and arts critic with a background in human rights. She worked with the English Centre of PEN, the international association of writers, for over 20 years and was Director of its Writers in Prison Committee from 1991 to 2006. She is currently chair of the Authors’ Club. She is the editor of anthologies A Country of Refuge and A Country to Call Home and Writers Under Siege.
Writer and editor with bylines in Frieze, NBC News, Prospect, Tribune, gal-dem among others, Leila Sackur was an intern at BookBlast after leaving Cambridge University. She currently works in editorial at Profile Books in London.
C. J. Schüler is an editor and journalist whose writing spans European history, politics, heritage, archaeology, classical music and visual art. He has worked on the editorial staff of The Independent and Rough Guides, and has edited a wide range of travel guides and illustrated non-fiction. He has contributed to The Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, and New Statesman. His most recent book, The Wood That Built London, explores the lost forest that once stretched across South London.