Guillebaud, Rosemary

Author

b 1915, d Cambridge 2002. Born into a missionary family, she first went to live in Africa at the age of 10, when her skill in translation first became apparent. She read Modern Langs at Cambridge Univ (BA, MA), before returning to Africa where she spent 39 years teaching, including work on Bible translation, in Burundi. Her father Harold compiled the first bi-lingual hymn-book for the central African churches, with other family members drafted in as office assistants. The one hymn credited to Rosemary as translator (though her name is often omitted from its printing) is a version of the 1946 Kinyarwanda text by the pastor Emmanuel T Sibomana; see notes. She required no fee for her work of translation. From 1979 she enjoyed over 20 years of retirement in Cambridge, where she died peacefully in Addenbrooke’s Hospital on 25 June 2002. See also Margaret Guillebaud (her niece), Ruanda, the Land God Forgot?, 1999. No.749.