I am a writer, book editor and Russian and Ukrainian translator, based in Norwich, England. Since 2005 I have worked and travelled in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
For the last 17 years my life has been connected with Eurasia – as a student living in Russia (2005-2006), a translator at law firms in Kyiv, Ukraine (2007-2010), a translator and editor working on business conferences in the CIS region (2011-2015), and as a wine & spirits analyst (2015-2018). For this job I travelled to 11 countries – Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey – to meet with alcohol companies.
I still spend every spare moment travelling in these places, from little-known cities to remote wildernesses, learning the cultures and histories of each of the Eurasian republics.
WRITING
I write about travel and culture for Lonely Planet, Bradt Guides and Open Central Asia magazine. My writing has also been published in the books Kidding Around, The Expeditioner’s Guide to the World, and in three editions of the annual Wisden Almanack. I have previously been a features writer for Ukraine International Airlines’ Panorama magazine, Made in Georgia magazine, IWSR Magazine and The Calvert Journal, among others.
Read some of my published writing here.
In 2019 two of my photographs, from Almaty and Tashkent, were displayed at the exhibition ‘Daily Lives in Central Asia’ in Brussels, organised by the European Union’s SEnECA project. Since 2020 I have been involved with the charity Ukraine Charity, writing communications and social media posts.
RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN TRANSLATION
I have been a professional Russian translator since 2007, and now focus on creative projects, both independently, and as a committee member of the Eurasian Creative Guild. My translations include the novel A Hundred Years on the Steppe by the Kazakh author Bayangali Alimzhanov (Hertfordshire Press, 2019); six poems by the Russian poet Ekaterina Khlebnikova for her book I Think We Should Just Live (Hertfordshire Press, 2020); three poems by the Tatar writer Lenar Shaekh (2021); and the war story Little Squirrel by the Belarusian author Andrei Geraschenko (Vitebsk Printing House, 2022). More eclectic projects include translating a song for a music studio in Kyiv, and writing subtitles for a documentary film in Kyrgyzstan.
I have translated texts from Ukrainian for the refugee organisation Crisis Respond, the publishing and arts website Chytomo in Kyiv, and the Ukrainian fashion brand Framiore.
Read more about my translation work here.
BOOK EDITING
Away from Eurasia, since 2021 I have edited eight other books: four fiction novels, and four books on the topics of positive psychology and mindfulness. In 2021 I edited the English translation of Begizhan Akhmedov’s novel The Wanderer – once named Kyrgyzstan’s book of the year. In 2021 and 2022 I edited a collection of hundreds of folk tales from the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic.
Read more about my book editing work here.
To discuss working together, please write to me at hello@jonathancampion.com.
Follow @jonathancampion
EURASIAN ECHOES 