Fair 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, the ways we define success, and what it means – and whether it is possible – to make a living as an artist.

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.

Jen Calleja is a poet, short story writer and essayist who has been widely published, including in The White Review, The London Magazine, and Best British Short Stories. She was awarded an Authors’ Foundation Grant from the Society of Authors to work on Vehicle, and was shortlisted for the Short Fiction/University of Essex Prize for an excerpt from the novel. Previous books include Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode, Vehicle, I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time, and her debut poetry collection, Serious Justice. She has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize as a literary translator from German into English, and was the inaugural Translator in Residence at the British Library. Calleja played and toured in the DIY punk bands Sauna Youth, Feature, Monotony, Gold Foil and Mind Jail spanning over a decade as a drummer and vocalist.