An extract from Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated by Polly Barton
A literary phenomenon in Japan, Hunchback is an extraordinary and thrilling debut novel about sex, disability and power
An interview with Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton, author and translator of Hunchback
With Hunchback longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025, we spoke to its author and translator about the childhood books that inspired them, and how translated fiction can deliver something fresh
Saou Ichikawa
The inspirations behind Hunchback, and how I wrote it
Hunchback is the latest in a long line of narratives about disabled people written throughout history. I wrote it out of a wish to capture the truths about life as a disabled person that hadn’t been written about in those previous works, and which most people are oblivious to.
I wrote it in a month-long spurt, and sent it to the publisher. I didn’t do any research for the book, but I drew upon years of personal experience, and the history of disabled people that I studied at university helped me, too. I was conscious that it was special in the sense that I knew Shaka was a protagonist of a kind that hadn’t been written before.
The book that made me fall in love with reading
I loved Michael Bond’s A Bear Called Paddington series and Enid Blyton’s St Clare’s series. Reading about Paddington getting upset about Schubert’s ‘Unfinished Symphony’, and rushing off to complain to the composer himself, instilled in me the determination to always finish every work that you start!
The book that made me want to become a writer
I started out my career as an author writing romance novels for young people, and those early attempts were all imitations of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. While I was writing romance, all of my heroines end up as Nastasya. I don’t write romances any more, and I’m constantly surrounded by other kinds of books that I have to read, but in my old age, I hope to go back to The Idiot again, and to enjoy it, leisurely, as a romance novel.
Saou Ichikawa
The book that changed the way I think about the world
For me, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse managed to build a bridge with words between my mediocre rational understanding and enlightenment, as a place of acceptance of all that happens in everything in life. The idea that a perfect life, a perfect character isn’t something that lies at the end of a journey down a single, correct path came as a great salvation to me, with all my love of worldly things, and also provided me with a new challenge.
A book originally written in Japanese that I’d recommend to English-language readers
There’s a book by Ashihei Hino, translated into English in 1939 as Wheat and Soldiers, which isn’t widely read in Japan anymore, but which captures the feeling of life in Japan during conscription. The system of categorisation that separates normal and disabled bodies is intimately connected to this conscription system, and I believe this will be a central topic for me for the next few years. My interest in it doesn’t just stem from my own experience as a disabled person, but rather as someone living through a turning point in history.
The International Booker-nominated book everyone should read
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. Every time I reread this book, I’m astounded by the multifaceted nature of the reality that it conjures into being.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The idea that a perfect life, a perfect character isn’t something that lies at the end of a journey down a single, correct path came as a great salvation to me
Polly Barton
The inspiration and process behind the translation of Hunchback
There are books whose urgency barely needs to be articulated because it’s so evident within the work itself, and Hunchback seemed to me like one of those: it burns itself right into the mind of the reader. It’s a cinematic work, that conjures up a dense and vivid world with very little, so the language needed a lot of honing, to make sure that it was hitting all of those imagistic notes in the way that they needed to. I’d say the principal narrative voice came to me quite quickly and intuitively, but there are lots of shifts of register within the span of the book, which took quite a lot of time and attention to capture.
The book that made me fall in love with reading
The book that comes to mind is The Very Big Secret by Enid Blyton. It’s about a bunch of children who look after a baby in secret in the forest. As a child it seemed to me totally wondrous. I think that was the first time I was aware of this sense of fiction as a portal to this world that felt intensely rich and special.
The book that made me want to become a translator
I don’t think I’ve really had that reaction to translated fiction, strangely. Reading Antonia Lloyd Jones’ translation of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead or Anthea Bell’s translation of Austerlitz I think the feeling I have is one of awe. It’s a ‘wow, I could never do that’ feeling. Maybe I’ve been more inspired by bad translations, which make me think that I could do better.
The translator whose work I always look out for
There are quite a few of these! Julia Sanches is someone whose work I will always feel excited about. Her translation of Eva Balthasar’s trilogy is astounding.
Polly Barton
© Garry LoughlinThe book I’m reading at the moment
I’ve just started You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrique. It’s too early to say much about it yet, although I’m in love with the fact that it starts with a note from the author to the English translator, Natasha Wimmer…!
A work of fiction originally written in Japanese that I’d recommend to English-language readers
I’m a massive fan of The Diving Pool and Other Stories by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Steven Snyder. There’s something about the images in those stories that seem to burn right into you. Snyder’s translation does an incredible job of retaining that scalding, powerful intensity and tension that runs through the prose.
The International Booker-nominated book everyone should read
I adored The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken. It’s a masterclass in creating something that feels miraculously expansive and fertile with so little. I love the form, the way that voice is used.
Why do you think translated fiction is so appealing to a new generation of English-language readers?
Translated fiction often delivers something that feels genuinely new – whether it’s the voice, the story, the form or the approach to storytelling – in a way that Anglophone fiction can struggle to do. I guess translated fiction has the capacity to inspire, to transport, in a way that appeals to those with plentiful curiosity, those who aren’t overly attached to the familiar.
The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa
I guess translated fiction has the capacity to inspire, to transport, in a way that appeals to those with plentiful curiosity, those who aren’t overly attached to the familiar
