The Memoirs of Eva Gillies Eva Gillies (née Krapf) was a wonderful story-teller. She would entrance friends with tales of growing up in Argentina, of speaking four languages and devouring books – leading on to her vivid memories of Oxford life as a student in the late 1940s and eventually as a free-lance interpreter based in Geneva. She became truly a citizen of the world, as a professional conference interpreter in such key places as Hanoi after the French-Vietnam War, Lagos in newly-independent Nigeria and Warsaw at the height of the Cold War. She then returned to Oxford in 1962 to study social anthropology at Evans-Pritchard’s Institute. She was widowed shortly after her first marriage to Hasan Askari, but carried on with research of her own in West Africa and with a spell of teaching in the University of London. She then married Mick Gillies and settled with him in the Sussex village of Hamsey, whence they migrated seasonally to West Africa for his specialist studies of mosquitos. Eva continued her own writing and translating in Hamsey – and, especially, continued to entertain visitors from far and wide. After she lost Mick, friends encouraged her to write up her memoirs, and we are now proud to present the result – a tribute to her life and to the extraordinary range of personal encounters that shaped it.

Published: 1st Jan 2014 Paperback: 235 pages Price: £12.99 ISBN: 9-781909-644137 Available from: Amazon, Waterstones, Blackwells and other retailers Visit Amazon.co.uk Edited by Wendy James, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford.

Eva had virtually finished the text before her health deteriorated and she died in early 2011.
With final editing completed by Wendy James, the keen support of Eva’s family and close friends,
and the dedicated work of the publishing team at YouCaxton, this fascinating story is now available.
It will find interested readers not only among academic anthropologists, historians and translators,
but also anyone interested in world affairs since the 1930s.
With an Introduction by Wendy James and Douglas H. Johnson.