This is one of those rare creatures – a book that all five booksellers here have read and love. Libby is emoting her feelings about the novel above, and below is Leah’s review.

This debut novel by Polly Barton announces an extraordinary new talent in fiction whose probing, inquisitive voice simply fizzes with intelligence and charisma. At GRB we must confess to being good friends with Polly Barton. I even had the privilege of hearing an early draft of a section of the book (which went in pretty much unedited), and in what seemed like just a year later the book was done. I knew it would be good but was still blown away by just how good it was.

What Am I, a Deer? follows its protagonist to Germany where, despite not being into gaming, she takes up a job in a world-famous games company. Embarking on what she hopes will be a first step toward a career as a Japanese translator, she is also lured by the prospect of her own personal reinvention, to break free of the turmoil social dynamics plays on her mind. She parses out memories of school and cliques from college that have made her feel interminably at odds with her peers, who respond to glimpses of her scintillating inner-world with either awe or mockery. Her new life in Frankfurt offers a reset, maybe she will find an ease to her body and mind, maybe even amongst the alternative set of social values set forth by her gamer colleagues she will find her people?

One of the many wonderful aspects of this book is the style of writing that reads as if intrinsic with the shape of the young woman’s mind, and having established herself as a kind of ecstatic—an impassioned deep thinker—when she encounters a beautiful stranger on the tram in Frankfurt we know she’s in trouble. Hope for her reinvention falters as she falls into old obsessive patterns. She dives back into her mind, colouring her dreamscape by stealing glances at the stranger as she listens to music on her headphones and revels in the grip of desire, how it heightens her senses and sharpens her mostly dull days at the company.

The flowing prose of Barton’s writing is like a propeller, effecting what it is to be in this endlessly curious mind that turns over a broad scope of themes enlightening each it touches upon. As readers, we are rewarded along this journey by very funny anecdotes woven through what becomes a kind of logic of both her mind and the book. Connections come about from the feverish mode of thinking that continues to tap at the screen in order to reach what makes sense to her and her world. Most poignant, and entertaining, are the connections made between her practice of translation and her love of karaoke. Song lyrics splice up the chapters like jolts from the unconscious, they perform a kind of ‘karaoke logic’, that is, an invitation of her own making to succumb to what it is to be wild, desiring, naive, unselfconscious, enraptured, or possessed. This book is a spellbinding enquiry into the self and one’s place in the world and remains wholly authentic throughout even at its most playful and outlandish.

We’re honoured to announce that in a rare UK appearance the celebrated Greek poet, Phoebe Giannisi, is coming to the shop next month to discuss and read from her sumptuous new publication, Goatsong. And to add to the excitement, Phoebe will be in conversation with the book’s translator, Brian Sneeden; a multi-award-winning poet as well as a celebrated translator.

Here’s more on the book from Fitzcarraldo:

‘The ancient Greek word for tragedy (τραγωδία) is a compound of goat (τράγος) and song (ᾠδή). In Phoebe Giannisi’s Goatsong, the seam that connects human and animal, myths and history, is the body.

‘In these lyric enactments, all is transformative and transformed; territories of land, the body and history are blurred, and nothing is still. From Homer to Donna Haraway, Derrida to state archives, klephtic ballads and rebetiko, to Parmenides and Giannisi’s dog, Ivan, the many human and animal voices of Goatsong form an incantatory lyricism and layered engagement unique in literature.’

This is an unmissable opportunity to hear from a towering presence in modern poetry.

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‘It abounds with imaginative, unexpected phrasing, and is suitably full of light, reflections on memory, home and loss, all with a syntactical velocity.’
Declan Ryan, Irish Times

‘I was immersed in Phoebe Giannisi’s Goatsong. I grieved with her as a mother, and rejoiced with her as a lover of all wild and wonderful places. Her work lives in me and inspires me to work harder to capture the truth – as the best poetry always does.’
Sasha Dugdale, author of The Strongbox

‘Goatsong intoxicates with its animality of language, gorgeous lyric and off-kilter metamorphoses, by turns wry, ecstatic and strange. Reading Phoebe Giannisi is like reading pre-Socratic philosophy on all fours, where flies buzz on and off the page and the polyphony of species and elements is both dazzling subject and all-encompassing medium.’
Daisy Lafarge, author of Paul

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Phoebe Giannisi is the author of eight collections of poetry. A 2016 Humanities Fellow of Columbia University, Giannisi is a professor of architecture at the University of Thessaly, and co-editor of the literary journal frmk. She has translated Ancient Greek lyric poetry as well as the poetry of Barbara Koehler, Gregor Laschen, Jesper Svenbro and André Pieyre de Mandiargues. She lives in Volos, Greece.

Brian Sneeden is the author of Last City (Carnegie Mellon, 2018). His poetry and translations have received the Iowa Review Award in Poetry, an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship, the World Literature Today Translation Award for Poetry, the Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize, a PEN/Heim Translation Grant and other recognitions. He is a lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The new novel from Polly Barton – writer, translator, festival collaborator, friend of the shop, Bristol resident, and all around good egg – is making its way out into the world on March 26th. It already has the distinction of being the only book read by all five of your humble booksellers here. My own brief report is below, but the understated headline is that we are keen.

We are delighted to say that we have secured an allocation of the limited special edition, which is available for pre-orders now via the link below. We expect these to go quickly.

We’re more than delighted to say that the acclaimed author and poet, Luke Kennard, is coming to the shop to discuss his dazzling new novel, Black Bag, with award-winning poet, author and performer, Bristol’s very own Stefan Mohamed.

Join Luke as he reveals all about this gloriously unfettered, riotus and heartening tale.

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“Such a smart and philosophical novel really has no business being this entertaining. Black Bag is hilarious, profound, tender and deranged.” Anna Metcalfe

“Black Bag is a masterpiece from one of the best writers at work today. In his endlessly quotable prose, Kennard explores modern masculinity with compassion and brutal honesty, warmth and despair.” Joe Dunthorne

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Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist; he also lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. In 2014 he was named one of the ‘Next Generation Poets’ by the Poetry Book Society in their once-per-decade list. Hie poetry and fiction have won or been nominated for numerous prizes including the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Forward Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize.

Stefan Mohamed is an award-winning author, poet, performer and creative writing tutor based in Bristol. He is the author of five novels and four books of poetry, with a fifth forthcoming in 2026. He also DJs.

Tickets on sale for

International Booker Prize event in Bristol!

We’re thrilled to say that Translated By, Bristol – our collaboration with good friends Storysmith Books and the award-winning author and translator, Polly Barton – are joining forces once again with The International Booker Prize to host the prestigious award’s annual shortlist readings event in Bristol!

The event will take place at Bristol Beacon on May 15th and will feature readings and discussion from this year’s shortlisted authors and translators. The full line-up for the event will be confirmed after the shortlist has been announced on March 31st.

To whet your appetite, and to see who might be appearing at Bristol Beacon in May, take a look at the International Booker Prize longlist which was announced earlier today.