Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton

In Fifty Sounds, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, Polly Barton attempts to exhaust her obsession with Japan, the country she moved to at the age of 21, before eventually becoming a literary translator. From min-min, the sound of air screaming, to jin-jin, the sound of being touched for the very first time, Fifty Sounds is a personal dictionary of the Japanese language, recounting her life as an outsider in Japan. Irreverent, humane, witty and wise, Fifty Sounds is a revolutionary act of learning, speaking, and living in another language.

*

Polly Barton is a brilliant, learned and daring writer and Fifty Sounds is a magnificent book.

Joanna Kavenna

*

It’s genuinely gripping: forthright, inventive, personal, and fizzing with ideas.

Patrick McGuinness

*

It is about non-understanding, not-knowing, vulnerability, harming and hurt; it is also about reaching for others, transformative encounters, unexpected intimacies, and testing forms of love. I was completely bowled over by it.

Kate Briggs

*

Not available in the US.