About the Author

Valerie Taylor-Bouladon lived in Geneva for more than thirty years, working for United Nations and its Specialized Agencies (ITU, ILO, WHO, WMO, GATT/WTO, UNCTAD, ECOSOC, FAO, UNESCO, ISO, IEC, OECD, the European Community, AELE and the International Atomic Energy Agency) as a minute-writer, then translator, reviser/proof-reader and finally as a consecutive and simultaneous conference interpreter. She has been a member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters since 1971 and was elected Council Member for the Asia-Pacific Region (which she created) from 1984 -1988. She moved to Australia in 1978 and became the AIIC representative in Australia and negotiator with the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters in 1982, becoming their first NAATI Level 5 (French and Spanish) and a Founding Member of the Australian Institute of Translators and Interpreters as well as President of their Conference Interpreter Professional Section. She was Visiting Lecturer and Chief Examiner at Queensland University Level 4 Interpreting Course (M.A.) (Japanese) for some fifteen years, setting the syllabus, providing the examination papers and marking system. She interpreted at the first Heart Transplant round table with Prof. Barnard and other world experts at the World Health Organization, Geneva, in 1967, the first World Conference on Space Communications, UN conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the first Arab/Israeli discussions after the Yom Kippur war, for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing at the Tokyo Round GATT Trade Negotiations, translated from Russian the first colour television standards documents and interpreted at the subsequent international conference on that subject. She interpreted at numerous Cancer Research Expert Panels in Lyon, France, for French television and the Non-Aligned Movement in Africa and former Yugoslavia where she was Marshal Tito's and Fidel Castro's personal interpreter. Also at the annual International Labour Conferences held in June each year in Geneva. Since coming to live in Australia she has interpreted on many occasions in Parliament House, Canberra, for the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs during visits of Heads of State from non-English-speaking countries including the President of Argentina and the Prime Minister of France. She was also Prince Sihanouk's personal interpreter over a period of two years at the Peace in Cambodia talks in Jakarta, Indonesia.