The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft is a quirky, captivating debut novel. It’s 2017, and Argentinian translator Emi has been invited, along with seven other translators from all over the world, to the home of Irena Rey, a renowned author who lives deep in the middle of a primeval Polish forest. When the translators arrive at Irena’s house, the writer mysteriously disappears, leaving behind her chaos, questions and clues that she may have been deceiving her public. The translators, who Emi sometimes refers to as a collective consciousness of “we”, try to solve the riddle of Irena’s disappearance while still working to translate her magnum opus. Croft, who herself has translated the Polish Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s work, weaves a fascinating fable about the relationship between translator and author.