Jamie Searle – Translator

I'm a literary translator from German and Portuguese, and over the past 15 years I’ve had the pleasure of bringing some truly wonderful books to English-language readers. I work with large publishing houses and indie presses, and directly with authors. I have lived and worked in Germany and Brazil, which has given me an in-depth knowledge of the cultures I now immerse myself in through translation.

My recent publications include a co-translation of Angela Merkel's memoirs, Freedom (2024), and my translation of Kim de l'Horizon's ground-breaking debut novel Blood Book, recipient of the German and Swiss national book prizes. My other translations include titles by the bestselling German crime novelist Sebastian Fitzek, and 1913 by Florian Illies, which became a Sunday Times bestseller and BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week . My forthcoming books include the latest in Jean Luc Bannalec's internationally-bestselling Brittany Mystery series.

In addition to literary fiction, I also love working on non-fiction titles (with a particular interest in academic, history, and wellbeing titles) and genre fiction - from thrillers, sci-fi and romance to YA.

I enjoy collaborating directly with authors to bring their books into English, and have received wonderful feedback from my clients, who have returned for further collaborations. With my experience as a freelance copyeditor, I can produce ‘ready-to-publish’ translations for clients. If you have a project you would like to discuss, please don't hesitate to get in touch - I would love to discuss it with you in more detail.

Previous feedback from clients:

''What a wonderful translation - so elegant, so lucid, and the voices of the various characters beautifully clear and strong! A really, really impressive feat.''

- Gesche Ipsen, editor

''I read this yesterday. It’s perfect. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever received a translation (in my eight years of doing this) which needs so little work. It’s fluid, poetic, interesting word by word and engaging line by line.''

- Commissioning Editor at Granta Books, UK