Celia Hawkesworth graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1964 and was awarded a British Council scholarship to study in Belgrade for 10 months, where she began her career as a translator.
[1] From 1971 to 2002, she was a senior lecturer of Serbian and Croatian in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London.
[2][3] Based in Kirtlington and an active part of the environmentalist movement,[4] she has translated over 40 books by Slavic authors into English, including The Culture of Lies by Dubravka Ugrešić, My Heart by Semezdin Mehmedinović, EEG by Daša Drndić, and Omer Pasha Latas by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić.
[5][6][7] In 1975, she was appointed to as a trustee to the British Trust Scholarship and has served as both secretary and chairperson.
[8] Her translation of Daša Drndić's Canzone di Guerra (Istros Books) and Senka Marić's Body Kintsugi (Peirene Press) were awarded a PEN Translates grant by English PEN.