Polly Barton reflects on her experience of moving to a Japanese island at the age of 21 before eventually becoming a literary translator.

She has attempted to exhaust her obsession with Japan by compiling a personal dictionary of its language. From min-min, the sound of air screaming, 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.

But can learning a language affect how we think about our own identity? What can it tell us about the precarity of human communication and relationships?

Irreverent, humane, witty and wise, Barton recounts her life as an outsider in Japan and considers the quietly revolutionary act of learning, speaking, and living in another language.

Polly Barton’s Fifty Sounds is published by Fitzcarraldo. Buy a copy from Waterstones, our bookselling partners.

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Festival of Ideas: Polly Barton, What Does Learning a Different Language Teach Us About Identity?