My dispatch from the intern’s desk begins with a struggle for a foothold in a competitive industry, but it ends on a happy note: do not lose hope!
Truth be told, I emerged from my Publishing MA at UCL deflated. I believed I should immediately have a job lined up within the publishing industry, preparing to draft my dissertation in stolen time during summer evenings and weekends. But I quickly learned life was not that simple. I had vastly overestimated the job market, not heeding the warnings of friends and family, too hopeful and desperate to move on from the global pandemic that haunted us all even four years on. The cycle of application, ghosting, zoom “chats”, choruses of “not enough experience”, and “we regret to inform you” played on a loop. Being a jobhunter requires pure resilience and endurance; a friend once told me it was like our cohort was on a chariot charging into battle.
A glimmer of hope came in the form of freelance work with small press, DAS Editions, designing brochures and creating Instagram campaigns. I could see the light at the end of the deep dark tunnel of the job market. I witnessed the passion of independent publishers, and this has been an unwavering devotion I’ve seen over the past year, fuelling me with a sense of motivation I had lost sight of. At the end of 2025, I met Georgia and began working at BookBlast in January. Since then, I have felt incredibly privileged to have played some role in championing these novels, independent presses, authors from around the world in translation and their translators. It has reminded me why I wanted to pursue a publishing career in the first place.
Before BookBlast I had read only a handful of works in translation throughout my life. I was enamoured by The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili, charmed by The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, and horrified by I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. In the last six months I have been introduced to books that have opened my eyes and mind to the richness of literature outside the UK due to the BookBlast Book Club choices. There is something liberating about reading in translation, feeling a connection to the rest of the world and its storytelling rather than existing in an English-language echo chamber.
My Women – a flash fiction collection about the Ukraine war – exposed intrinsic fears that those outside war do not want to confront. Yuliia Iliukha lays reality bare, whilst keeping a poetic rhythm and lyrical intensity. Lovers of Franz K. wove together so many questions about literary legacy, trust, friendship, justice, immigration, anti-Semitism, morality and revenge. It was unlike anything I’d ever read, combining transcript with prose. Small Boat was like a dagger to the heart, unflinchingly turning to the reader and asking – what have you done to help migrants? Hearing the translator, Helen Stevenson, sharing her experience working on the novel is an example of the eye-opening conversations facilitated by the book club. But the first novel I read for BookBlast back in January was Far by Rosa Ribas published by Foundry Editions. Minimalist, stark, unnerving and pulsing with a vivid sense of place – a perpetually unfinished housing development baking under the Spanish sun.
It spoke to the inner Bookstagrammer in me to create social media content for BookBlast. I felt like a student in the best possible way, interrogating myself on my reaction to these novels, researching why they had been written, and the process of being translated. So re-kindled and ignited was my love of literature, I sought out translation beyond the book club. I read my first Olga Tokarczuk, House of Day, House of Night, and savoured the language in Boulder by Eva Baltasar. The last six months have been transformative for me as a reader, a writer, and a publishing hopeful. I have come to truly understand that translation should not be treated as its own genre but appreciated for its vibrancy and refusal to pander to our expectations as an Anglophone reading public . I will always treasure works in translation as a means to travel across borders and encounter new cultures, but, first and foremost, to remember there is more that unites us than divides us.
The copyright to all the content of this site is held by the individual authors and creators. All rights reserved. Enquiries: please use the contact form
