Welcome to Valtaybou

Valerie Taylor was born in England but lived most of her life in Switzerland, working for the United Nations in Geneva under her new married name of Valerie Bouladon. She started work there in October 1948 as a trilingual reporter, became a translator (English, French, Spanish and Russian) and then a simultaneous interpreter (English, French and Spanish). She interpreted at UN conferences in India, most of the countries of Africa and Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, China, Korea, Japan, Iran, Kuwait and now Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Rarotonga, New Caledonia and others. She has led an exciting life, kidnapped in Cairo and proposed to by an African potentate who invited her to accept the honour of becoming his fourteenth wife. Tired of airports, luxury hotels, lavish cocktail parties, formal dinners and speeches and living out of suitcases, married an Australian in 1981 and settled in Canberra, interpreting at Parliament House for the Prime Minister when non-English-speaking statesmen came to visit, as well as organizing interpretation and translation teams at international conferences held in the Asia-Pacific region. In 1987 she came to live on the windswept coast of New South Wales where she has embarked on a new career as a writer. She has published three books and contributed to two others.

Contact email valerie@valtaybou.com