He translates literary works from German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch.
[1] Among the authors he has translated are Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Walser, Ingeborg Bachmann, Hermann Hesse, Kurt Schwitters, Peter Handke, Jon Fosse, Heike B. Görtemaker, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Max Weber, and Nescio.
He won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize in 2019 for Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl.
[3] In April 2022, the English translation by Searls of Jon Fosse's novel A New Name: Septology VI-VII was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
In a translation, even what look like divergences or outright mistakes on the single-word level may well be part of what you need to do to re-create the same force in English.