An itinerant European writer, J A Hopkin has lived in Krakow, Berlin, Leipzig (where he was Guest Professor of Literature) and Zagreb, and enjoyed residencies in Rijeka, Split, Wroclaw, Prague, Ljubljana, and rural Denmark. He has written over 50 short stories exploring Europe, a novel, Winter under Water and the award-winning story, Even the Crows Say Krakow. His Dalmatian Trilogy, Georgian Trilogy and stories set in Berlin and Vienna were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The recipient of a V S Pritchett award and a bench in Krakow, Hopkin continues to write his way round the continent, including a novel Say Goodbye to Breakfast! which foresaw the UK's spiritual and political severance from the mainland.

Since 1998, Hopkin has written extensively about European literature for the Guardian, the New Statesman, the TLS, and others, interviewing Nobel prize winners, and championing the work of writers such as Olga Tokarczuk and Laszlo Krasznahorkai since they first appeared in English translation. He also brought Jarett Kobek, the best-selling radical Turkish-American writer, to a UK publisher.

''The tenderness and severity of Hopkin’s vision is absolutely unique.'' - Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel Laureate of Literature, 2018