Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting
Simona Škrabec was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She has lived in Barcelona since 1992. She graduated in German Philology and Comparative Literature, at the University of Ljubljana. In 2002, she obtained a PhD in Comparative literature at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She is Associate Professor of German Language and Culture at the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation (UAB). In June 2025 she was elected Dean of the Faculty for six years (2025-2031). From 2014 to 2020, she was the Chair of PEN International’s Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee.
She has been Visiting Professor at the University of Stanford (2013), the Intercultural University of Chiapas, México (UNICH, 2020) and University of Leipzig, Germany (2024). She was professor of literary studies at UOC (2012-2023) and UPF (2020-2023). Since 2017, she has been member of Contemporary Catalan Translation Study Group (GETCC). She also participated in other research projects as ESCORE at UPF (2022-2025).
She is the author of the books L’estirp de la solitud (‘Lineage of Solitude’, 2003. Award of Catalan Academy of Arts and Sciences Josep Carner for Literary Theory, 2001), L’atzar de la lluita (‘Of Chance and Struggle’, 2005), Patria prestada (‘Borrowed homeland’, 2017) and Desig d’ordre (‘The yearning for order’, 2023). She is also an author of short stories.
In the field of Translation Studies, she participated in the influential research project, To be translated or not to be (2007), directed by Esther Allen, about the situation of literary translation in the globalized world. With Arnau Pons she directed an extensive project about cultural exchange between Germany and Catalonia in the XXth century (Grenzen sind Straßen, 2007-2008, 2 vol). In 2016, she directed PEN International report Culture’s Oxygen about publishing industry in minority languages, commissioned by UNESCO.
She frequently contributes essays and articles in academic and cultural journals in Spain and abroad. She is a member of the editorial board at the journal L’Espill of the University in Valencia since 2007. From September 2023 to September 2024, she was editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine L’Avenç and since Fall 2024, she is editor-in-chief of academic journal Quaderns. Revista de Traducció (UAB) from Fall 2024.
She has translated more than forty books from Serbian and Slovenian authors into Catalan and Spanish, as well the translation of some of the most important Catalan contemporary authors into Slovenian. For her trajectory as translator, in 2020 she was awarded the Janko Lavrin price by Slovenian Association of Literary Translators and 2022, she was distinguished the Ramon Llull price for her trajectory as a translator from Catalan. She also founded a webzine Visat, edited by Catalan PEN, with aim to promote literary translators and directed it for the first ten years (2006-2015).