I’M AFRAID THAT’S ALL WE’VE GOT TIME FOR

Jen Calleja (Prototype)

From a London-based writer, a debut collection of short fiction that’s consistently inventive, envelopingly surreal and biting in its observations. Jen Calleja works as a literary translator – her articles about the politics of this practise instilled a strong interest in me, perhaps oddly for a monoglot – and has performed in various bands (some of the pieces here have been previously set to music). In that these stories’ protagonists often come from what could be called the creative classes, one might assume a ‘write what you know’ ethos, but scenarios unfold to reveal a world that’s not quite like ours, or fantastical and dreamlike. A teenage girl leaves her north Wales home and reinvents herself as a German truck driver; an art-world celebrity kills her sister and artistic partner, who narrates the aftermath from the afterlife. Perhaps most effective is The Amnesty, written as responses to a survey on male-female relations in a society where women enjoy and abuse the lion’s share of the power balance. A more literal-minded writer could have rendered this premise heavy-handed satire, but Calleja’s treatment has a subtlety that keeps you engaged with the two respondents while also checking yourself. NOEL GARDNER

Price: £12. Info: www.prototypepublishing.co.uk