Misumi Kubo Author

Misumi Kubo withdrew from junior college and worked for an advertising company before turning freelance as a writer and editor. She is the author of seven novels. She won the R-18 Literature Prize in 2009 for the short story that became the first chapter of So We Look to the Sky, her debut novel, which won the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, placed second in the voting for the Japan Booksellers' Award, and was a runaway bestseller. Her next novel, Stray Whale on a Sunny Day, won the Futaro Yamada Prize, and in 2018, Staring at Our Hands was shortlisted for the Naoki Prize. She lives in Japan.

Polly Barton is a translator of Japanese fiction and nonfiction. She has translated short stories for Words Without Borders, the White Review, and GRANTA. Full-length translations include Where the Wild Ladies Are by Matsuda Aoko, Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki, and There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. After being awarded the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, she has written a memoir about her experiences learning and translating Japanese, entitled Fifty Sounds. She lives in the UK.