Fair: The Life-Art of Translation, is a satirical, refreshing and brilliantly playful book about learning the art of translation, being a bookworker in the publishing industry, growing up, family, and class.

Loosely set in an imagined book fair/art fair/fun fair, in which every stall or ride imitates a real-world scenario or dilemma which must be observed and negotiated, the book moves between personal memories and larger questions about the role of the literary translator in publishing, about fairness and hard work, about the ways we define success, and what it means – and whether it is possible – to make a living as an artist.

Fair is also interested in questions of upbringing, background, support, how different people function in the workplace, and the ways in which people are excluded or made invisible in different cultural and creative industries. It connects literary translation to its siblings in other creative arts to show how creative and subjective a practice it is while upholding the ethics and politics at play when we translate someone else’s work.

Blurring the lines between memoir, autofiction, satire and polemic, Fair is a singularly inventive and illuminating book by one of the UK’s most original and admired writers and translators.

Praise for Vehicle:

‘Book of the Year 2023: Granta, The Big Issue, The London Review Bookshop, The Skinny, Lunate

‘Vehicle manages to reproduce the near-physical thrill of archive discovery while also being a playful, resistant and gorgeously compelling game with text and language. Calleja is one of the most exciting writers working today.’ – Kaliane Bradley

‘Vehicle is unlike anything I have read before, a brilliantly original piece of work, it blew my mind. Reading it was like hearing The Velvet Underground for the first time!’ – Camilla Grudova

‘To say that Vehicle is a feminist Pale Fire for the Brexit generation may not be high enough praise for this intoxicating, thrilling and endlessly inventive work.’ – Joanna Walsh

‘A high-stakes speculation, an adventure into a new world order as well as the possibilities of the novel-form, Vehicle is a feat of ungovernable imagination. Bold, bracing, brilliant.’ – Kate Briggs

‘Jen Calleja’s debut novel towers with ambition that proves justified through Vehicle’s meticulous world-building, pin-sharp characterisation and mordant wit.’ – Buzz Magazine

‘With its dashes of, oh, I don’t know, Quin, Pynchon, Chute, Gibson and Ballard, Jen Calleja’s mind-blowing mix of secret-state hatred of the other, alt culture and written word-power has produced a compulsive future classic. I loved Vehicle. Totally recommended.’ – The Crack Magazine

‘If you haven’t read Jen Calleja’s novel yet, then you definitely should… it’s politically insightful, funny, formally inventive, and addictive reading!’ – Rosanna Mclaughlin

‘I’m reading Vehicle for the second time right now and it’s seeping into my dreams. What a glorious piece of art, I love it!’ – Katy Derbyshire