{"title":"Polly Barton","description":"\u003cp\u003eDive into the insightful and moving works of Polly Barton, exploring themes of identity, language, and culture with sharp wit and emotional depth. A compelling voice in contemporary literature.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"porn-book-polly-barton-9781804270400","title":"Porn","description":"A landmark work of oral history interrogating everything and anything related to porn.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49549974765841,"sku":"GOR013745010","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49743241281809,"sku":"NGR9781804270400","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49795306848529,"sku":"GOR012980049","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50489903546641,"sku":"GOR013525286","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50922568876305,"sku":"GOR013027169","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50955400053009,"sku":"CIN1804270407VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51051568627985,"sku":"NIN9781804270400","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51325996302609,"sku":"CIN1804270407G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52660745634065,"sku":"NLS9781804270400","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52819546669329,"sku":"CIN1804270407A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1804270407.jpg?v=1759229029"},{"product_id":"fifty-sounds-book-polly-barton-9781913097509","title":"Fifty Sounds","description":"Why Japan? In Fifty Sounds, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, Polly Barton attempts to exhaust her obsession with 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, 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 as an outsider in Japan. Irreverent, humane, witty and wise, Fifty Sounds is an exceptional debut about the quietly revolutionary act of learning, speaking, and living in another language.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49726450303249,"sku":"GOR011289971","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740724273425,"sku":"NGR9781913097509","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50203893825809,"sku":"GOR011530288","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52664784912657,"sku":"NLS9781913097509","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52857141756177,"sku":"GOR012976413","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1913097501.jpg?v=1759228404"},{"product_id":"fifty-sounds-book-polly-barton-9781324091318","title":"Fifty Sounds","description":"“The language learning I want to talk about is sensory bombardment. It is a possession, a bedevilment, a physical takeover,” writes Polly Barton in her eloquent treatise on this profoundly humbling and gratifying act. Shortly before graduating with a degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge, Barton on a whim accepted an English-teaching position in Japan. With the characteristic ambivalence of a twenty-one-year-old whose summer—and life—stretched out almost infinitely before her, she moved to a remote island in the Sea of Japan, unaware that this journey would come to define not only her career but her very understanding of her own identity.   Divided into fifty onomatopoeic Japanese phrases, Fifty Sounds recounts Barton’s path to becoming a literary translator fluent in an incredibly difficult vernacular. From “min-min,” the sound of air screaming, to “jin-jin,” the sound of being touched for the first time, Barton analyzes these and countless other foreign sounds and phrases as a means of reflecting on various cultural attitudes, including the nuances of conformity and the challenges of being an outsider in what many consider a hermetically sealed society.   In a tour-de-force of lyrical, playful prose, Barton recalls the stifling humidity that first greeted her on the island along with the incessant hum of peculiar new noises. As Barton taught English to inquisitive middle school children, she studied the basics of Japanese in an inverse way, beginning with simple nouns and phrases, such as “cat,” “dog,” and “Hello, my name is.” But when it came to surrounding herself in the culture, simply mastering the basics wasn’t enough.   Japanese, Barton learned, has three scripts: the phonetic katakana and hiragana (collectively known as kana) and kanji (characters of Chinese origin). Despite her months-long immersion in the language, a word would occasionally produce a sinking feeling and send her sifting through her dictionaries to find the exact meaning. But this is precisely how Barton has come to define language learning: “It is the always-bruised but ever-renewing desire to draw close: to a person, a territory, a culture, an idea, an indefinable feeling.”   Engaging and penetrating, Fifty Sounds chronicles everything from Barton’s most hilarious misinterpretations to her new friends and lovers in Tokyo —and even the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s transformative philosophy. A classic in the making in the tradition of Anne Carson and Rachel Cusk, Fifty Sounds is a celebration of the empowering act of learning to communicate in any new language.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50943822528785,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50943822758161,"sku":"CIN1324091312G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52949779120401,"sku":"NIN9781324091318","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1324091312.jpg?v=1750954100"},{"product_id":"what-am-i-a-deer-book-polly-barton-9781804272176","title":"What Am I, A Deer?","description":"What does it mean to lose yourself – and is that something you should be aiming for? A young woman with little interest in games takes up a job in Frankfurt at a famous gaming company, naively set on reinvention. On her morning commute, in the familiar clutches of tedium and self-loathing, she encounters a nice-eyed stranger who returns her forgotten umbrella and finds herself catapulted into a dizzying, year-long whirlwind of obsession – not just with this endlessly attractive spectre, but also with the feverish karaoke trips from which she draws the ultimate solace. With astonishing existential acuity, Polly Barton’s formidable debut novel renders the paradoxes of modern life in all its complexity, in deliriously self-conscious prose that is at once propulsive, titillating and bitingly funny. Echoing with the sounds of Whitney Houston and The Cure, reaching for the sublime in dark, sweaty boxes, What Am I, A Deer? is an exhilarating exploration of authenticity, fantasy, romance and intoxication.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52901494489361,"sku":"NGR9781804272176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53335244833041,"sku":"GOR014855785","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53336376934673,"sku":"GOR014856644","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53360536944913,"sku":"NLS9781804272176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53362093261073,"sku":"NIN9781804272176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53402491388177,"sku":"GOR014906312","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781804272176.jpg?v=1765620238"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-polly-barton.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}