Polly Barton and Chal Ravens: What Am I, A Deer?

What Am I, A Deer?, Polly Barton’s debut novel, takes on the vagaries of translation – linguistic translation, self-translation, and reinvention – which she’s previously explored in the much-loved Fifty Sounds, also published by Fitzcarraldo.

‘The protagonist of What Am I, A Deer? finds herself both Schrödinger and his cat on entering the Frankfurt tram, the office, and the “black box” of the karaoke booth; inside and outside simultaneously, trying to figure out whether she exists and in a state of tingling oscillation’, writes Jen Calleja. ‘Polly Barton is the maestra of controlled dissolution.’

Barton was in conversation with Chal Ravens, Novara Media’s head of audio and contributor to the London Review of Books.