Barbara Wright

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For the fictional character in the Doctor Who TV series, please see Barbara Wright (Doctor Who)

Barbara Wright is considered one of the premier English translators of modern French literature. An Englishwoman, born in 1915, Wright studied art in Paris in the years before World War II. She began her career as an art and literary critic before devoting her time to translation. She specializes in "poetic prose" and drama, especially French surrealist and existential writing, but she has translated works in several genres including women's literature, historical fiction, and fantasy. In 1986 she was made a Commandeur in l'Ordre des Artes et des Lettres.

Her literary translation papers are held by the Lilly Library at Indiana University (Bloomington). The files are arranged alphabetically with publisher correspondence and French author/translation queries and notes all in a single alphabet. The authors she has translated and who are represented in the collection include Jean Hamburger (Le Journal de William Harvey), Eugene Ionesco, Pierre Lauer, Robert Pinget, Raymond Queneau and Nathalie Sarraute. The publishers of Wright's works, with whom there are extensive correspondence files, are Doubleday, Faber & Faber, New Directions, and Red Dust. Also present is a large file of correspondence between Wright and Russell Fitzgerald, an aspiring author and devoted fan of her work from San Francisco, California.