Interpreters at the United Nations : a history

Inc. ref.

This book deals with the history and the collective memory of a group of professionals work in the most universal organisation of the international political system. Combining the reflections of the historian and the interpreter, the research is based on original documents, the press and oral testimonies. It should be read as an essay, revolving round temporal and linear axis of the period of history it covers- from the creation of the United Nations in 1945 to the present days. This is the period of the consolidation of the profession of conference interpreter as we know it today, and the United Nations serves as a testing ground and a mirror of has happened throughout the almost sixty years" existence of the Organitation. The evolution of political and diplomatic relations has had an impact in the interpreters" profile. Now, interpreters do not come into the profession by chance, as they did in the past, but through training in specialised schools. What was seen as a phenomenon has become a profession.