[3] He was a Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford between 2000 and 2007, and worked as assistant editor at the literary magazine Areté.
[10] He is also the author of a project on the novel and translation, which includes a book first published in 2007,[11] which was chosen as a book of the year by Tom Stoppard in The Guardian and A. S. Byatt in the Times Literary Supplement; and, as guest editor, Multiples, an anthology of multiple translations for McSweeney's Quarterly.
[12] In 2019 he created Studio Créole, a group show with novelists and interpreters, co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist, which premiered at Manchester International Festival in July.
[13] An experimental book with unfolding pages called Kapow!, designed by Studio Frith, was published by Visual Editions in 2012.
[17] Thirlwell wrote a short film, Everyday Performance Artists, for Channel 4's Random Acts, directed by Polly Stenham and starring the voice of Shia LaBeouf, with Gemma Chan, James Norton, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, in 2016.