Jem Calder – författare

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST OF 2026'Prepare to see this everywhere.' Elle'I was totally invested.' Saba Sams'I was utterly enthralled.' Leslie Jamison 'Jem Calder is my new favourite writer.' Andrew O'Hagan'Will appeal to Cleopatra And Frankenstein fans, and the setting and themes is reminiscent of Evenings And Weekends.' StylistChuck and Joey meet in a bar. He's in his mid-thirties; she's twelve years younger. He's long abandoned his ambition of becoming a novelist and now works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. 'Lead copywriter,' he corrects himself. Joey lives paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck's luxury flat-a world away from Joey's cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey's imagining a future between them, and Chuck's moving on from a mistake in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new.Funny, excruciating, and true, I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but still trying.

For fans of Patricia Lockwood and Ben Lerner, audacious fictions of a generation wondering: what now?'Reward System is an exhilarating and beautiful book by an extraordinarily gifted writer. Reading these stories, I found myself thinking newly and differently about contemporary life.' SALLY ROONEYJulia has landed a fresh start - at a 'pan-European' restaurant.'Imagine that,' says her mother.'I'm imagining.'Nick is flirting with sobriety and nobody else. Did you know: adults his age are now more likely to live with their parents than a romantic partner?Life should have started to take shape by now - but instead we're trying on new versions of ourselves, swiping left and right, searching for a convincing answer to that question: 'What do you do?'Reward System is a set of ultra-contemporary and electrifyingly fresh fictions about a generation of the cusp; the story of two people enmeshed in Zooms and lockdowns, loneliness and love.

Julia has landed a fresh start as a chef at an up-and-coming city restaurant.Her ex-boyfriend, Nick, is flirting with sobriety and nobody else.Life should have started to take shape by now, but instead they're trying to make new versions of themselves, searching for a good answer to the question: 'What do you do?''A superb writer, by turns funny, graceful, acidly cynical, lyrical' Guardian'An exhilarating and beautiful book by an extraordinarily gifted writer.' Sally Rooney'If you've been waiting for someone to close the gap on social distancing, to capture the furtive problems of social media, to make you laugh at your own alienation, to wrap your mind around the narcissism of small differences, then Calder is your new best friend, and his debut collection is the must-read book of the year.' Andrew O'Hagan'Remarkably fresh . . . Calder's writing achieves that rare thing of capturing how it feels to be young.' Esquire

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST OF 2026'Prepare to see this everywhere.' Elle'I was totally invested.' Saba Sams'I was utterly enthralled.' Leslie Jamison 'Jem Calder is my new favourite writer.' Andrew O'Hagan'Will appeal to Cleopatra And Frankenstein fans, and the setting and themes is reminiscent of Evenings And Weekends.' StylistChuck and Joey meet in a bar. He's in his mid-thirties; she's twelve years younger. He's long abandoned his ambition of becoming a novelist and now works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. 'Lead copywriter,' he corrects himself. Joey lives paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck's luxury flat-a world away from Joey's cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey's imagining a future between them, and Chuck's moving on from a mistake in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new.Funny, excruciating, and true, I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but still trying.

"Belohnungssystem ist ein belebendes und wunderschönes Buch von einem außergewöhnlich talentierten Autor. Beim Lesen dieser Erzählungen habe ich angefangen, neu und anders über die Gegenwart zu denken." Sally RooneyJulia beginnt einen neuen Job als Köchin in einem paneuropäischen Restaurant. Und eine Affäre mit ihrem Chef. Nick möchte aufhören zu trinken und anfangen zu schreiben. Stattdessen zieht er zurück zu seinen Eltern. Zwei Menschen, die sich einst liebten, beide auf der Suche nach einer Lebensform, in die sie hineinpassen.Jem Calder webt mit Belohnungssystem ein dichtes und vor Gegenwart sprühendes Netz von Erzählungen. Sie handeln von entfremdenden Arbeits- und Liebesbeziehungen, von unerfüllter Sehnsucht und von Einsamkeit, von den verschiedenen Versionen des Selbst im virtuellen Raum.So szenisch, intelligent und präzise wurde unser digitales Zeitalter noch nicht gelesen.