Sophie Heywood

My main areas of interest are in children’s books and publishing, and particularly translating for children. I am a founding co-director of the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, and co-organise a webinar series Explorations in Translation for Children in partnership with Outside in World, the organisation dedicated to promoting children's books in translation.

My current research project 'Stories on the Move' investigates explores how co-creation approaches and creative translation workshops can be used to develop work experience projects and professional skills training for languages students in schools. Working in partnership with publishers and translators we run hands-on workshops for young people to learn about the journeys that stories make in translation.

My first book Catholicism and children's literature in France: The comtesse de Ségur (1799-1874) (Manchester University Press, 2011) introduced English-language readers to the classic French children’s author, through a literary, political and publishing history of her books and writing career.

In 2018 I co-edited a special issue of the children’s literature journal Strenae with Cécile Boulaire, entitled ‘The Children’s ’68/ Le ’68 des enfants’, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of May ’68. It examined the impact of the ’68 years on culture for children across the Scandinavian countries, Poland, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Italy, France and the UK.

I was part of the team led by my colleague Nicola Wilson that co-edited The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2020 (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), exploring the diversity of women’s work in transatlantic and continental publishing across the twentieth-century.

My latest book Children’s Publishing in Cold War France: Hachette in the Age of Surveillance and Control, is open access (Bloomsbury, Perspectives on Children’s Literature series, 2025). It details the history of Cold War censorship legislation and its impact on the French publishing industry for children and transatlantic cultural exchange.