Collections
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going | 2009 | Buy |
Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Everything You Say Is True | 2003 | Buy |
| The Inkblots | 2015 | Buy |
| The Philosophy of Translation | 2024 | Buy |
Damion Searls is better known for his translations than for his original writing, having brought dozens of major European literary works into English across a career that began in the early 2000s. His translation clients include Jon Fosse (the 2023 Nobel laureate in Literature), Hans Keilson, Nescio, Robert Walser, and Proust, among many others.
His original non-fiction, which comprises the main body of work listed here, reflects the same literary and intellectual interests that shape his translation choices. The Inkblots (2017) is a biography of Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist who developed the inkblot test, tracing both the man and the cultural life of his invention. It was praised as a model of intellectual biography — grounded in archival research and written with clarity about ideas that touch psychology, visual culture, and the history of diagnosis.
The Philosophy of Translation (2024) addresses his own practice directly, examining what translation is, what it does to meaning, and how a translator’s choices constitute a form of authorship. What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going (2009), his earlier short prose collection, shows the more essayistic side of his writing.