Sabine Asmus was born in East Berlin, East Germany, and studied English/Russian and Celtic languages there. She graduated from the Humboldt-University with a PhD in Translation Studies in 1991, and then studied and worked in Wales until she returned as acting head of Celtic Studies at the Humboldt-University. During that time she translated a novel and other literary works from Welsh into German, taught at a Welsh-medium school, and started research in lexicology and lexicography. From 2000 onwards, she has been lecturing and researching in the field of Celtic Studies as well as in English Studies as Professor in Vienna, Lublin, Poznań and Szczecin. In Poznań, she established the first Celtic Department in Poland, currently consisting of ten staff members, who teach predominantly Welsh and Irish, but also Scottish Gaelic on fully-developed BA, MA and PhD schemes. A Polish-Welsh dictionary project was started, the academic journal Res Celticae, as well as various translation projects from Irish into Polish. Through her own research interests, morphological, historical, and comparative literary studies were added. She has been guest lecturer in France, Ireland, Wales and Germany, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru, as well as a collaborator with various Welsh film production companies.

Barbara Braid is Assistant Lecturer at the English Department in Szczecin University, Poland. Her MA dissertation concerned the figure of the woman in Jeanette Winterson’s oeuvre, and, in recent years, she has published a number of articles and book chapters on neo-Victorian, lesbian and gothic literature. She is currently a PhD candidate at Opole University, Poland, working on a dissertation on the motifs of female madness in the Victorian and neo-Victorian novel.