Nathaniel McBride studied at the universities of London and Oxford. He began to work as a freelance translator from German to English in 2004. In 2011 he translated Heiner Mueller's three Lehrstuecke “Philoctetes”, “The Horatian” and “Mauser” for Seagull Books. His translation of Gerhard Richter and Alexander Kluge's “Dispatches from Moments of Calm” was published by Seagull in 2016.