Bio note

Yana Ellis found her ideal career in her middle years and graduated in 2021 with a merit in her MA in Translation from the University of Bristol. She was shortlisted for the 2022 John Dryden Translation Competition and in the same year was awarded an ALTA Travel Fellowship. She translates fiction and creative non-fiction from Bulgarian and German into English.

Yana's work has appeared in The Trinity Journal of Literary Translation, No Man’s Land, The Common, SAND Journal, and Trafika Europe, and is forthcoming in Words Without Borders and Turkoslavia. Yana’s first full-length literary translation The Wolves of Staro Selo (recipient of the PEN Translates Award), is forthcoming from Héloïse Press in 2025.

Residency goals 

During her residency in Sofia Literature and Translation House Yana will focus on exploring new titles from Bulgarian to translate and pitch to publishers in the UK. She will endeavour to connect with contemporary Bulgarian authors and learn more about their work, as well as continue to deepen her knowledge of the Bulgarian publishing industry.