Sally Laird

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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1956|05|02|df=y}}{{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}}

| birth_place = Barnet

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2010|07|15|1956|05|02|df=y}}

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| children = 1

| occupation = writer and translator

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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.{{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}} She was a student of Russian and philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford.{{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}} She was editor of The Isis Magazine at Oxford. Laird went on to Harvard University, on a Harkness Fellowship, where she gained an MA in Soviet studies in 1981. As part of her Oxford degree, she spent a year at Voronezh State University.

Career

Laird worked for Amnesty International during the 1980s. She was USSR editor for the magazine Index on Censorship between June 1986 and November 1988, when she became editor-in-chief.{{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}} She held the job until August 1989.

After leaving the magazine she worked as a translator and editor, and reviewed books for The Observer. She translated a series of Russian novels. 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".{{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}}

Laird became project manager of the Central European Classics series, brought out by Central European University Press.{{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}}

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.{{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}}

In 1993, Laird moved to Denmark, living at Ebeltoft. She learnt Danish and worked as a translator between English and Danish.

Personal life

Laird and her husband Mark Le Fanu had one daughter. Laird died in 2010.

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){{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}}
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)