Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
Shortlisted for the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2018
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2020
Translator in Residence British Library 2017–2018
Translator in Residence Austrian Cultural Forum London 2015–2017
I’ve translated over a dozen full-length works of contemporary German-language fiction and literary non-fiction by authors including Marion Poschmann, Wim Wenders, Michelle Steinbeck, Kerstin Hensel, Gregor Hens, among others.
I’m currently translating Milk Teeth by Helene Bukowski (Unnamed Books), Return of the Lobster by Michelle Steinbeck (Makina Books) and The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer (Scribe).
My translations have been published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, Faber & Faber, Serpent’s Tail, The New Yorker, Granta, The White Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Literary Hub, and others. I also act as a literary consultant on German-language and translated literature for English PEN, Arts Council England, and various publishers and publications.
I was the inaugural Translator in Residence at the British Library (2017-2019) and the Austrian Cultural Forum London (2015-2017).
Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
“He walked into the hallway, dropped his briefcase theatrically, and confronted his wife. She denied everything. This only confirmed his suspicions. Mathilda seemed different. Unusually fervent. Agitated. Ashamed. She accused him of slipping out early in the morning without saying goodbye. I. Was. Worried. How. Could. You. Endless accusations. A flimsy deflection tactic. As if the blame suddenly lay with him. She had gone too far. He wouldn’t allow it.”
Impeccably translated by Jen Calleja
Times Literary Supplement
Exquisitely translated
Chair of Judges, Man Booker International Prize 2019
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2020
A child attacks Loribeth with an iron while she is sleeping. In retaliation Loribeth throws the iron onto the child from an upstairs window, packs the damaged body into a suitcase and sets off on her travels.
Thus starts Steinbeck’s unusual, poetic novella about a young woman’s transition from childhood to adulthood. Loribeth and her suitcase begin an odyssey through nightmarish locations in search of her absent father. What ensues is a Freudian adult fairytale in this exciting debut by young Swiss author Michelle Steinbeck.
Michelle Steinbeck’s novel is a surreal and giddying tour through an off-kilter world. Verging from comic to nightmarish and back again, often within sentences, it’s absurd, brilliant, and completely unique – a coming-of-age fairytale unlike any you’ve read before.
Sophie Mackintosh, Author of The Water Cure
As distinctive as it is disconcerting
The Guardian
Vividly creepy and fun, Michelle Steinbeck is the lovechild of Robert Walser and a witch. Fans of Leonora Carrington, Vera Chytilova’s Daisies and the darkest corners of Hans Christian Andersen will delight in this book.
Camilla Grudova, Author of The Doll’s Alphabet
The Pixels of Paul Cezanne is a collection of essays by Wim Wenders in which he presents his observations and reflections on the fellow artists who have influenced, shaped, and inspired him. “How are they doing it?” is the key question that Wenders asks as he looks at the dance work of Pina Bausch, the paintings of Cezanne, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth, as well as the films of Ingmar Bergman, Michelanelo Antonioni, Ozu […]
These eloquent and insightful essays – expertly translated by Jen Calleja – celebrate the transformational power of seeing
The Guardian
Shortlisted for the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2018
Gabriela grows up in the East German town of Leibnitz. Her father is a famous surgeon, her mother a respected society hostess. The girl, however, struggles to fulfil their expectations. She shows no talent as a violinist and, worse, she fails to choose the right friends at school. When her father falls out of favour with the communists, Gabriela drops out of school. Eventually she ends up living beneath a canal bridge. Then the Wall falls. Can Gabriela seize a second chance in the new, united, Germany?
A pitch-perfect English translation … the book’s rich, complex treatment of unstable borders – a vanishing geopolitical line between East and West, shifting socioeconomic categories, and above all the violated boundaries of Gabriela’s psyche and body – makes it a brilliant choice for the series.
Jane Yager, The TLS
A vibrant and striking translation of a wonderful satirical coming of age novella exploring the lasting consequences of German division.
Schlegel-Tieck Prize Jury
Shortlisted for ICA Bookshop Book of the Year 2016
Written with the passion of an obsessive, Nicotine addresses a life of addiction, from the epiphany of the first drag to the perennial last last cigarette. Reflecting on his experiences as a smoker from a young age, Gregor Hens investigates the irreversible effects of nicotine on thought and patterns of behaviours.
If Nicotine has a literary progenitor I would say that it is In Search of Lost Time … an extraordinary act of literary finesse … [with] tinkling little notes of comedy … [a] dark, lovely, funny book.
Joan Acocella, The New Yorker
The author is an idiosyncratic stylist whose sentences are often terse and elliptical, and Calleja’s translation ably captures his unique voice.
Kirkus Reviews
The diary of guitar player Marlene Marder recounts the life of Zurich’s first all-female band, lavishly illustrated and documented with photographs, posters, covers, interviews, reviews, fan mail, fanzines, lyrics from 1978 to 1983.
Image from the out of print 1986 Edition Patrick Frey
