Collected's TWELVE BOOKS OF CHRISTMAS | FAIR: the Life-Art of Translation - Jen Calleja

COLLECTED LOVES... In a truly unique approach to memoir, Calleja takes us on a trip through an art/fun/translation fair, with each attraction themed around a pivotal moment in her life as a language learner and literary translator. Condensed into perfectly bite-sized chapters, she gifts us an unfiltered view of what it takes to make a living as an artist these days. (I’ve never seen the realities of translator life told with such honesty!) Whether you’re already familiar with translation or not, this book will make you laugh, ask some questions, and possibly start a petition.

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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.