About this item
In the shrewd, penetrating spirit of Anne Carson and Rachel Cusk, brilliant newcomer Polly Barton explores the disorienting art of language in Japan. "Witty, exuberant, also melancholy, and crowded with intelligence" (Rivka Galchen) , Fifty Sounds is a genre-defying meditation on language from an electric new voice. When Polly Barton moved to a remote island in Japan at twenty-one, she did not anticipate the total sensory bombardment: "It is a possession, a bedevilment, a physical takeover." Divided into fifty onomatopoeic Japanese phrases, this elegantly written and deeply introspective memoir recounts her path to grasping the basics and becoming not only a literary translator but fluent in one of the most difficult vernaculars in the world.
About the Author
Polly Barton is a writer and Japanese translator based in Bristol. In 2019, she won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and her debut book , a personal dictionary of the Japanese language, was published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo Editions in April 2021. In 2022, was shortlisted for the 2022 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Her translations have featured in and and her full length translations include by Tomoka Shibasaki (Pushkin Press) , by Aoko Matsuda (Tilted Axis Press/Soft Skull) , which was shortlisted for the Ray Bradbury Prize, and by Kikuko Tsumura (Bloomsbury) .Her new book, , will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) in March 2023 and La Nave di Teseo (Italy) .
