Carol Volk is a French literary translator, a diplomat, editor and writer. She has published more than thirty works in translation by leading French and francophone authors, including Tahar Ben Jelloun, Jean Dubuffet, Éric Rohmer, Amélie Nothomb, Patrick Chamoiseau, Luc Ferry, Olivier Roy, and Robert Bober. Her translations span fiction, memoir, philosophy, anthropology, political science, film history, art history, architecture, and sociology, and have appeared with top trade and university publishers—Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Columbia University Press; University of Chicago Press; Harvard University Press; MIT Press; and Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books. Her work has been praised in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The L.A. Times, Publishers Weekly, and numerous other outlets (see reviews).
Her translated titles include modern classics such as The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy, Asphyxiating Culture by Jean Dubuffet, Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience by Raymonde Carroll, Corruption by Tahar Ben Jelloun, The Stranger Next Door by Amélie Nothomb, and Childhood by Patrick Chamoiseau.
From 1999 to 2025, Carol served as a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, with postings in Tel Aviv, Rome, Baghdad, Morocco, and Washington. Her portfolio ranged across European and Middle Eastern political and economic affairs, human rights, refugee issues, and foreign investment amid strategic competition. In Tel Aviv during the second intifada, she reported on human rights alongside the late Ambassador Martin Indyk. As staff assistant in the Middle East Bureau, she served under a high-profile team including Bill Burns, Ryan Crocker, David Satterfield, and Liz Cheney. In Rome, as a Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellow, she worked at the Italian Foreign Ministry during Italy’s G8 Presidency, helping draft the first G8 peacekeeping report.
She launched the State Department’s first Air Quality Awareness Week, and while detailed to the World Bank, helped establish the Global Concessional Finance Facility—supporting countries performing global public goods such as hosting refugees. In Baghdad, she led a U.S. initiative to digitize endangered Jewish archives. Later, she headed the Department’s inaugural infrastructure development unit, where she led efforts to launch the Blue Dot Network, setting global standards for infrastructure and promoting a level playing field for U.S. businesses. As Economic Counselor in Morocco, she and her team elevated U.S. economic engagement amid strategic competition and organized the first U.S.–Morocco Venture Capital Forum in collaboration with Prosper Africa.
She received numerous Superior and Meretorious Honor awards from the State Department, as well as the American Foreign Service Association's Averell Harriman Award for Constructive Dissent.
Originally from Queens, she is currently at work on a memoir, Crossing the Queensboro Bridge. After years overseas and in Washington, she and her husband, an economist, recently settled in the Hudson Valley. They have two adult sons.
Her translated titles include modern classics such as The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy, Asphyxiating Culture by Jean Dubuffet, Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience by Raymonde Carroll, Corruption by Tahar Ben Jelloun, The Stranger Next Door by Amélie Nothomb, and Childhood by Patrick Chamoiseau.
From 1999 to 2025, Carol served as a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, with postings in Tel Aviv, Rome, Baghdad, Morocco, and Washington. Her portfolio ranged across European and Middle Eastern political and economic affairs, human rights, refugee issues, and foreign investment amid strategic competition. In Tel Aviv during the second intifada, she reported on human rights alongside the late Ambassador Martin Indyk. As staff assistant in the Middle East Bureau, she served under a high-profile team including Bill Burns, Ryan Crocker, David Satterfield, and Liz Cheney. In Rome, as a Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellow, she worked at the Italian Foreign Ministry during Italy’s G8 Presidency, helping draft the first G8 peacekeeping report.
She launched the State Department’s first Air Quality Awareness Week, and while detailed to the World Bank, helped establish the Global Concessional Finance Facility—supporting countries performing global public goods such as hosting refugees. In Baghdad, she led a U.S. initiative to digitize endangered Jewish archives. Later, she headed the Department’s inaugural infrastructure development unit, where she led efforts to launch the Blue Dot Network, setting global standards for infrastructure and promoting a level playing field for U.S. businesses. As Economic Counselor in Morocco, she and her team elevated U.S. economic engagement amid strategic competition and organized the first U.S.–Morocco Venture Capital Forum in collaboration with Prosper Africa.
She received numerous Superior and Meretorious Honor awards from the State Department, as well as the American Foreign Service Association's Averell Harriman Award for Constructive Dissent.
Originally from Queens, she is currently at work on a memoir, Crossing the Queensboro Bridge. After years overseas and in Washington, she and her husband, an economist, recently settled in the Hudson Valley. They have two adult sons.
