The Revolting Maid

An award-winning pocket opera

“Laugh-out-loud funny”
Dame Felicity Lott

George won the 2024 John Dryden Translation Prize for The Revolting Maid, his new English translation of Pergolesi’s classic farce La serva padrona.

The Dryden Prize is a long-running open competition for professional translators from any language in any genre, awarded by the British Comparative Literature Association.

The Revolting Maid was awarded a generous funding grant by the City Music Foundation, and premiered to an enthusiastic reception in 2025, in a brand-new production directed by Sophie Daneman.

Scored for just two singers, six instrumentalists and one unsuspecting audience member, this hour-long pocket opera can be played anytime, anywhere.

George translates professionally from German and Italian into English
for trade and academic publishers, and for the stage.
His work spans literary fiction, commercial non-fiction, essays, poetry, and opera.

George is the winner of the 2024 John Dryden Prize, runner-up of the 2022 Goethe-Institut Award, and placed third in the 2020 Geisteswissenschaften International Non-Fiction Translation Prize.

After graduating with a First in Modern Languages from Oxford University,
he worked in editorial at a London commercial publisher, before moving into theatre.

Recent Book Translations

  • Book Cover: The Wisdom of Old Dogs

    The Wisdom of Old Dogs

    Over 10,000 copies sold

    Elli H. Radinger
    Translated by George Robarts

    A dog is for life,
    but an old dog’s wisdom is for ever.

    Published by Mirror Books, 2019

    A Sunday Telegraph gift book of the year

    View
  • Book Cover: Aesthetics of Pop Music

    Aesthetics of Pop Music

    Available at Tate Bookshops

    Diedrich Diederichsen
    Translated by George Robarts

    Pop music cast in a fresh light by one of Germany’s foremost cultural critics.

    Published by Polity Press, 2023

    View
  • Book Cover: German Romanticism and Latin America

    German Romanticism and Latin America

    ed. Jenny Haase and Joanna Neilly

    Contributing translator on literary responses to Wilhelm Müller and Franz Schubert’s Winterreise.

    Published by MHRA (Legenda), 2024

    View
  • In AI We Trust cover

    In AI We Trust

    Helga Nowotny
    New preface translated by George Robarts

    Has our world of predictive algorithms changed what it means to be human?

    Published by Polity Press, 2021
    New edition 2024

    View

“George Robarts’ translation was strong on sound effects throughout, an imaginative blend of German and English focusing on the echoes and rhymes between them.”

Goethe-Institut Award Jury, 2022

“George’s work stood out for its precision and refinement.”

GINT Prize Jury, 2020