Diana Pollin Author, Copywriter, Translator English-French / French-English
Diana Pollin was born in New York City to a couple of academics.
Mom taught Spanish at NYU, and Dad was a professor of English in the city system. So, yes, diabolically difficult crosswords were served with the Sunday eggs and she knew who Don Quichote, Sancho Pancha and Rossinante were before the age of 10. Bookish and not very athletic, she spent most of her early school years writing and dreaming, except in math class where she mostly looked at the clock. Diana loved films and television, but as her folks were very strict, she was allowed only a delicious weekly Alfred Hitchcock hour and the Twilight Zone. With her best friend, she managed to smoke her first pack of Marlboros in front of Anita Eckberg’s gyrations in the Traversi Fountain in Fellini’s Dolce Vita, and thought it was the most sinful act a 12 year old could commit. Her views on sin have since radically changed, as have her views on smoking.
For college, she headed to New York University and decided to specialize in French and in English literature. The French was a happy mistake from years before. In middle school, most of the kids had signed up for Spanish as a first language, but some administrative error landed Diana in French as a first language, and the rest was an act of destiny and love! Diana spent her junior year abroad in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College, truly, in Hemingsway’s words, A Moveable Feast and the best place to sow one’s wilds oats, at least at that time. Diana graduated the following year and was accepted by Middlebury College Masters Program in Paris where she obtained her Masters in French Literature, and having met a Frenchman, married him the following year, bringing us up to her 21st year and a life in France. And a game of switcheroo.
What does a practical lass who has studied French to become a French teacher in America do when she is suddenly plunked down in France, and, clueless? She becomes an English teacher in France, which means taking a difficult qualifying state test and going for her Masters in English and American Literature at the Sorbonne. And starting a family. After a few years trying to install irregular verbs in Gallic minds, Diana quickly made the career move to the French university where she taught English to Economics and Management students for almost three decades.
Years later, having moved from Paris to the north of France, and finally settling in the sunny South with her second husband (also a Frenchman, c’est incorrigible) Diana can do what she most likes to do. Write, and most of all, write about contemporary French history, art history and fiction. Also enjoy her four grandchildren, and move back and forth with her husband from La Côte d’Azur to Miami where she has an apartment.