{{Short description|British editor and translator}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}} {{Use British English|date=October 2016}} {{Infobox person | name = <!-- defaults to article title when left blank --> | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = {{Birth date|1956|05|02|df=y}}<ref name="Kellaway">{{cite news |last1=Kellaway |first1=Kate |title=Sally Laird obituary: Writer and translator of Russian literature |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/sally-laird-obituary |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=10 August 2010}}</ref> | birth_place = Barnet<ref name="Kellaway"/> | death_date = {{Death date and age|2010|07|15|1956|05|02|df=y}}<ref name="Kellaway"/> | death_place = | nationality = <!-- use only when necessary per WP:INFONAT --> | other_names = | children = 1<ref name="Kellaway"/> | occupation = writer and translator | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = }} '''Sally Ann Laird''' (2 May 1956 – 15 July 2010) was a British editor and translator who specialised in Russian literature.
==Education== Laird was born in the London Borough of Barnet and attended Camden School for Girls.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Prospect_Le_Fanu">{{cite news |last1=Le Fanu |first1=Mark |title=Sally Laird: a tribute |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/54359/sally-laird-a-tribute |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=Prospect |date=2 August 2010}}</ref> She was a student of Russian and philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Sorokin 1988 p. 198">{{cite book | last=Sorokin | first=V. | title=The Queue | publisher=Readers International | year=1988 | isbn=978-0-930523-45-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEhRAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA198 | access-date=16 May 2023 | page=198}}</ref> She was editor of ''The Isis Magazine'' at Oxford.<ref name="Kellaway"/> Laird went on to Harvard University, on a Harkness Fellowship, where she gained an MA in Soviet studies in 1981.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Sorokin 1988 p. 198"/> As part of her Oxford degree, she spent a year at Voronezh State University.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Prospect_Le_Fanu"/><ref name="Sorokin 1988 p. 198"/>
==Career==
Laird worked for Amnesty International during the 1980s.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Prospect_Le_Fanu"/> She was USSR editor for the magazine Index on Censorship between June 1986 and November 1988, when she became editor-in-chief.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Prospect_Le_Fanu"/><ref name="Index">{{cite web |last1=Chandler |first1=Robert |title=Sally Laird 1956 – 2010 |url=http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/07/sally-laird-obituary |publisher=Index on Censorship |access-date=16 May 2023 |date=19 July 2010}}</ref> She held the job until August 1989.
After leaving the magazine she worked as a translator and editor, and reviewed books for ''The Observer''.<ref name="Prospect_Le_Fanu"/> She translated a series of Russian novels.<ref name="Index"/> ''The Washington Post'' reviewed her translation of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's ''The Time: Night'': "Sally Laird's version, although a bit British and a bit bowdlerized, conveys the wonderful fluidity and occasional frenzy of the monologue "written" by Petrushevskaya's narrator".<ref name="Woll">{{cite news |last1=Woll |first1=Josephine |title=MOTHERING RUSSIA |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1994/12/25/mothering-russia/b188994d-8492-4ffb-8ae5-b679b5968b44 |access-date=16 May 2023 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=25 December 1994}}</ref>
Laird became project manager of the Central European Classics series, brought out by Central European University Press.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Ash Dahrendorf Davy Winter 1995 p. 31">{{cite book | last1=Ash | first1=T.G. | last2=Dahrendorf | first2=R. | last3=Davy | first3=R. | last4=Winter | first4=E. | title=Freedom for Publishing, Publishing for Freedom: The Central and East European Publishing Project | publisher=Central European University Press | series=Central European University Press Books | year=1995 | isbn=978-1-85866-055-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ToMWB40FAtAC&pg=PA25 | access-date=16 May 2023 | page=31}}</ref>
She contributed to ''Till my Tale is Told: Women’s Memoirs of the Gulag'', and wrote ''Voices of Russian Literature: Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers'', the latter based on interviews she carried out between 1987 and 1994.<ref name="Index"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rosenberg |first1=Karen |title=Their Myths and Ours: Voices of Russian Literature |journal=Nation |date=18 October 1999 |volume=269 |issue=12 |pages=28–30}}</ref>
In 1993, Laird moved to Denmark, living at Ebeltoft.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Index"/> She learnt Danish and worked as a translator between English and Danish.<ref name="Kellaway"/>
==Personal life==
Laird and her husband Mark Le Fanu had one daughter.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Index"/> Laird died in 2010.<ref name="Kellaway"/><ref name="Index"/>
==Writing==
* Translation of ''The Queue'', by Vladimir Sorokin (Readers International, 1988; New York Review Books, 2008; {{ISBN|9781590172742}}) * Translation of ''The Time: Night'', by Ludmila Petrushevskaya (Pantheon Books, 1994) * Translation of ''Immortal Love: Stories'', by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Pantheon Books, 1996)<ref>{{cite news |last1=Thomas |first1=D M |title=Tales out of Russia |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/books/tales-out-of-russia.html |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=16 June 1996}}</ref> * ''Voices of Russian Literature: Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers'' (Oxford University Press, 1999) * ''Till my Tale is Told: Women’s Memoirs of the Gulag'', ed Simeon Vilensky, (Indiana University Press, 1999)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://nyrb.typepad.com/classics/2010/08/on-sorokin-translator-sally-laird.html A Different Stripe: On Sorokin translator Sally Laird]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laird, Sally}} Category:1956 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford Category:Harvard University alumni Category:British editors Category:British women editors Category:Russian–English translators Category:20th-century British translators Category:British women writers Category:20th-century women writers Category:People from the London Borough of Barnet Category:Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford Category:Amnesty International people Category:People from Ebeltoft Category:People educated at Camden School for Girls Category:Harkness Fellows