The story begins here...
My Writing
Isabel del Rio is a British-Spanish writer and linguist. She writes poetry and fiction in English and Spanish: Spanish is her language of nostalgia, memory and exile; English is her language of freedom, action and dissent.
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​​She has published novels, novellas, short stories, plays and dialogued fiction, as well as poetry, ekphrastic texts and literary translations. Her preferred genres are speculative, noir, fantasy, sci-fi, dystopia, and specifically the plight of women. She is mostly interested in experimental writing, and she fluctuates between literary fiction and genre fiction.
Isabel's book of short stories La duda was shortlisted for two literary awards in Spain, 'Nuevos Narradores' and 'Ícaro'. Her collection of shorter fiction Zero Negative–Cero negativo includes two versions of each story, one in English and the other in Spanish, not as translations but as complementary texts - the book is an indictment against bloodshed in its many forms: war, torture, capital punishment, slaughter, martyrdom. Other recent fiction works include Paradise & Hell and La autora del fin del mundo; her latest poetry books are Dolorem Ipsum and Cuaderno de notas. As a literary translator, she recently published Equidistant Voices, an anthology of several Latin American poets living in the UK.
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You can read some of Isabel's published short stories on this website, including Golden Gate Bridge, on self-immolation; The Third of Death, about death in the bullring as a statement against bullfighting; Sepharad, on death as imposed by the Inquisition; A Very Cold Case, about a ritual killing in the Stone Age; Paisaje y batalla, about the war that never ends, regardless of time and place; La pesadilla del dinero, a living nightmare on the subject of loss; and Antonio, en otra vida, about unrequited love. This website also includes several of Isabel's dialogued stories and a number of poems from her English and Spanish poetry collections, as well as ekphrastic reflections.
You can also hear Isabel reading her poems and fiction on Audio, and watch her performing on Video.
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RECENT AWARDS: Isabel received an Honourable Mention from the Dark Poets Prize III 2025 with her poem 'Hands and Lips'.​
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(Image: Northern Spain from the air, by IdR)
My Background
Born in Madrid, Isabel has lived in London most of her life, including part of her childhood and adolescence. She is a graduate of Universidad Complutense in Madrid (UCM) with a five-year degree (Licenciatura en Ciencias de la Información) and she holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of West London (UWL), with Translation and Adaptation as her main research disciplines for her doctoral thesis; her literary artefact Still Life is a speculative novel on the subject of Visual Art. She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIoL) and the Institute of Translation & Interpreting (ITI), and has a Screenwriters’ Foundation Certificate, as awarded by Raindance, UK. Links to her professional memberships can be found at the bottom of this webpage.
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She has extensive experience in several language-related fields: literary, institutional and technical translation; lexicography and terminology; creative writing and scriptwriting; journalism and broadcasting; authoring language-learning courses; translation referencing and research; language technologies; and tutoring, mentoring and lecturing in creative writing and translation.
At the BBC World Service (Spanish Section) in Bush House, London, she was a full-time producer and presenter for current affairs and arts programmes (Artes y Letras). Later on, and for over two decades, she worked as a full-time translator, reviser and terminologist for a United Nations specialised agency based in London (International Maritime Organization - IMO). Between both full-time jobs, she was a freelance journalist, translator and language consultant.
Also a performer and voice artist, Isabel regularly takes part in Performance Poetry and Spoken Word events.​ At present, Isabel is working on several new short plays and stage adaptations of her dialogue-driven fiction, and is hoping to produce and direct them for the stage.
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She is the co-founder of the independent publishing imprint Friends of Alice Publishing, based in West London.
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​NOTES:
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- DIACRITICS: Isabel uses 'del Rio' when writing in English, and 'del Río' (with an acute accent on the 'i') when writing in Spanish.
​​​- TRANSLATION: Isabel is an ab initio translator, and does not use AI for translation purposes. She specialises in literary, institutional, technical and commercial translation, but she is not a legal translator and does not translate legal or judicial documents requiring a Hague Apostille.
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(Image: Central Spain from the air, by IdR)
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