FIFTY SOUNDS

Why Japan? In FIFTY SOUNDS, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, Polly Barton attempts to exhaust her obsession wit h the country she moved to at the age of 21, before eventually becoming a literary translator. From min-min, the sound of air scream ing, to jin-jin, the sound of being touched for the very first time, from hi'sori, the sound of harbouring masochist tendencies, to mote-mote, the sound of becoming a small-town movie star, FIFTY SOUNDS is a personal dictionary of the Japanese language, recounting her life...[Read more]