About us

An introduction

Odista is a word in Serbian literary language meaning ‘truly, verily, indeed, in fact’. It also breaks down into ‘od’ and ‘ista’ and suggests the meaning ‘from the same’.

Odista stands for translation that is faithful to the original, authentic and a true reflection of the source.

Who are Odista?

Odista is the brainchild of Mark Daniels, a Slavonic Studies graduate of Nottingham University in the UK, a native speaker of English, bilingual with Serbian, brought up speaking Serbian in England and now living in Serbia since 1996.

We are building a highly skilled team of translators, including a number of native English speakers based in Serbia, who share the vision of excellence in translation. We do not outsource work to unknown or untried translators.

Why Odista?

Odista was born from the conviction that much could be done to improve the standard of translations between Serbian and English, which were often sadly inadequate. The lack of native English speakers involved was all too apparent and thus Mark’s wealth of translation experience made the idea of Odista the inevitable next step. Odista is a company specialising exclusively in translation between Serbian and English, with a very strong emphasis on quality control and the employment of native speakers.

Odista was originally known as Bookstream Language Services and comprised a part of the Bookstream book distribution company based in Novi Sad, Serbia. Odista is now an independent company and we are thus able to focus exclusively on what we do best – high-quality translation from Serbian to English and English to Serbian.

Odista – translation from Serbian into English, by the English.