Saou Ichikawa, translated by Polly Barton
Hunchback
“Filled with unforgettable insight”
Penguin, 2025
Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka Isawa has severe spine curvature and uses an electric wheelchair and ventilator. Within the limits of her care home, her life is lived online: she studies, she tweets indignantly, she posts outrageous stories on an erotica website. One day, a new male carer reveals he has read it all – the sex, the provocation, the dirt. Her response? An indecent proposal…
Written by the first disabled author to win Japan’s most prestigious literary award and acclaimed instantly as one of the most important Japanese novels of the twenty-first century, Hunchback is an extraordinary, thrilling glimpse into the desire and darkness of a woman placed at humanity’s edge.
About the Author
Saou Ichikawa is a novelist from Japan She graduated from the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University. Her debut novel, Hunchback, a bestseller in Japan, won the 128th Bungakukai Prize for New Writers and the 169th Akutagawa Prize. In the UK, it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. Ichikawa is the first author with a physical disability to receive the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s premier literary award. She has congenital myopathy, and uses a ventilator and an electric wheelchair.
About the Translator
Polly Barton is a British writer and translator of Japanese to English. She is the author of two non-fiction books, Fifty Sounds and Porn: An Oral History, and has translated numerous titles of Japanese literature and non-fiction.
