Jennifer Croft

Translator

Jennifer Croft has changed how people view the art of translation. The American, who works from Polish, Ukrainian and Argentine Spanish, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for her translation of 2019 Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob. The book runs to more than 1,100 pages and took Croft seven years to complete. The pair had won the same award in 2018—splitting the prize money—for Tokarczuk’s novel Flights. Croft, whose autobiographical novel Homesick will soon be released in the UK, has called for increased awareness of the collaborative nature of translated works and colaunched the #TranslatorsOnTheCover campaign, which argues the profession deserves greater visibility.