Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019, the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2018 and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize 2022. Twice nominated for the Dublin Literary Award (2020, 2021)
Translator in Residence at the British Library (2017-2019) and the Austrian Cultural Forum London (2015-2017). Cove Park Literature & Translation Residency (June 2021).
Judge for the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2021, Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators 2021 and Austrian Cultural Forum London Translation Prize 2017
Forthcoming translations include Gina by Reto Pulfer (Bom Dia Books) and The Diary of Marlene Marder by Marlene Marder (Thrilling Living). My next project will be a second non-fiction book for Fitzcarraldo Editions.
I’ve translated over fifteen book-length works of contemporary German-language fiction and literary non-fiction into English for publishers including Fitzcarraldo Editions, Faber & Faber, Serpent’s Tail, Scribe, Unnamed Press and Peirene Press. My translations have also appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The White Review, Modern Poetry in Translation and Literary Hub. Authors include Marion Poschmann, Wim Wenders, Michelle Steinbeck, Raphaela Edelbauer, Kerstin Hensel, Helene Bukowski and Gregor Hens.
I also edit translations from German, and act as a literary consultant on German-language and translated literature for English PEN, Arts Council England, and various publishers and publications. I’m the former acting editor of New Books in German, former translations and reviews coordinator at 12 Swiss Books, and guest poetry editor at No Man’s Land.
I’m a founding editor of Praspar Press, a micro-publisher of Maltese literature in English translation.
I’ve spoken about translation on the BBC World Service and at Edinburgh International Book Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, the British Library, Deutsches Haus at NYU, and elsewhere.
Shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize 2022
When her parents die in a car accident, highly talented Austrian physicist Ruth Schwarz is confronted with a problem. Her parents’ will calls for them to be buried in their childhood home — but for strangers, the village of Greater Einland remains stubbornly hidden from view.
When Ruth finally finds her way there, she makes a disturbing discovery: beneath the town lies a vast cavern that exerts a strange control over the lives of the villagers. There are hidden clues about the hole everywhere, but nobody wants to talk about it — not even when it becomes clear that the stability of the entire town is in jeopardy.
A Freudian exploration of complicated grief
Simon Ings, The Times
Ably translated from the German by Jen Calleja, Raphaela Edelbauer’s impressive debut novel is a subtle allegory of historical memory and collective guilt… The novel’s deft blend of registers — at once uncannily foreboding and drily comic — makes for an absorbing and memorable tale.
Houman Barekat, The Guardian
Beautifully written in immersive, spare prose, Helene Bukowski’s debut novel is about what it means to be a mother at the end of the world, about living with the impacts of climate change, and the way we view “outsiders.”
Milk Teeth makes for a bravura read. It’s at once a harrowing example of climate fiction and a work about a small community in isolation—a book that feels plausibly speculative and that plays out with the occasionally nightmarish logic of a fable. Even so, the psychology of Bukowski’s characters feels thoroughly realistic, and that in turn gives this novel even more power. Can a novel feel both inevitable and unpredictable? This one pulls it off.
Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders
Skalde seems to speak directly through the reader via the medium of cryptic notes written to herself, which stand out from the page, rendered in block capitals. These sections offered a particular literary pleasure, and translator Jen Calleja constructs them with a beautiful cadence in English.
Anna Rumsby, Asymptote
Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2019
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2021
“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
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 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
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