Translator Ivanka Hahnenberger is a Franco-American citizen who has led an international career in business management, finance, film, television and digital production. Ivanka started her professional career as an investment-banking analyst. In 2007 she bought a brand licensing company VIP which she transformed into VIP BRANDS a comics agency, translation and consulting company. As an agency they represent world English rights for German, French and African comics publishers. As a consultancy they organize world comics events. Hahnenberger translates comics, children’s books, catalogs, business proposals marketing plans and much more from French and German into English. She has translated Blue is the Warmest Colour by Julie Maroh, An Olympic Dream by Reinhard Kleist, and Catherine's War by Julia Billet, illustrated by Claire Fauvel, which was named a Batchelder Award Honor Book, amongst other books as well as Nudge theory white papers and several catalogs. She holds a Master’s degree in International Development with a specialization in Intellectual Property. She has lived in over ten different cities.
Baruti Kandolo Lilela, better known by his pen name Barly Baruti, is a renowned Congolese cartoonist. He was born in 1959 in Kisangani into a family of painters. After studying pedagogy, Baruti worked at French cultural centers in Kisangani and Kinshasa, where he produced his first comic work, an environmental comic titled Le temps d’agir. He has been described by the BBC as "the Congolese author best known outside his country.” Baruti is the co-founder of the Atelier de Création et de l'Initiation à l'Art (Creative Workshop for an Initiation to Art) to encourage talented youth in Kinshasa. He has lived in France and Belgium, where he apprenticed with several renowned comic artists. He currently lives in Kinshasa. In 2023, Barly was named Facilitator of Partnerships and Cultural Relations in Europe by the Congolese Ministry of Culture.
Ivanka Hahnenberger has translated over 60 comics and graphic novels, including several highly acclaimed titles such as Climate Changed, Blue is the Warmest Color, Madame Livingstone (a 2021 New York Times Globetrotting title) and Catherine’s War, which won her the Silver 2021 Batchelder Award. Born in Berkeley California, she spent part of her childhood in Geneva, Switzerland and lived in a multilingual, multicultural household. She has lived in Europe since 1983, primarily in France and Germany but with several short stays in other European nations, and presently lives in London. She has translated and transposed film and TV pitches, business plans and power points for decades, starting when she worked as a TV and film producer and consultant. As a big fan of French BD, she started a company to sell French rights into North America and through this began translating works to help buyers acquire. This grew into contractual translation work. She has translated biographies, scientific graphic novels, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, sagas, creative fiction, adaptations, history, classics and much more. She has also translated non-fiction guides on art and architecture, white papers on marketing concepts such as Nudge Theory, and children’s chapter books. She translates from both French and German into American English.
