From the Left Bank of the Flu | Misumi Kubo | Granta

From the Left Bank of the Flu

Misumi Kubo

Translated by Polly Barton

‘The big road looked to me like a river, the cars rushing by as if carried along on its current.’

Misumi Kubo

Misumi Kubo is a Japanese writer whose debut novel, Fugainai boku wa sora o mita (The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky) won the 2011 Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize. Since then she has published a number of novels, including Sayonara niruvāna (Goodbye Nirvana) and Seiten no mayoi kujira (Stray Whale on a Sunny Day), which was awarded the Yamada Fūtarō Prize in 2012.

More about the author →

Translated by Polly Barton

Polly Barton is a translator of Japanese literature and non-fiction, currently based in Bristol. Her most recent full-length translations include Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki (Pushkin Press) and Where the Wild Ladies Are by Matsuda Aoko (Tilted Axis/Soft Skull Press), and Kikuko Tsumura’s novel, There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job (Bloomsbury). Her debut non-fiction work, Fifty Sounds, is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in April 2021.

More about the translator →