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A story of intertwining lives that, like water, run between stones.
From childhood friends in a bakery in the mining town of Ugarte, Basque Country, to a group of comrades and their pet magpie in a military base in the dying days of Franco’s dictatorship, and eventually adults with the weight of their existence on their backs, the interconnected stories of the protagonists of Water over Stones span several decades of Spanish history, as Ugarte moves from the hazy summer of the 1972 Olympics, through the mining strikes of the turbulent Eighties, and into the modern day.
Water over Stones is an extraordinary novel of friendship, nature, love and the immensity of death. Once again, Atxaga shows his mastery in creating places and characters that are impossible to forget.
Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead and Margaret Jull-Costa
From childhood friends in a bakery in the mining town of Ugarte, Basque Country, to a group of comrades and their pet magpie in a military base in the dying days of Franco’s dictatorship, and eventually adults with the weight of their existence on their backs, the interconnected stories of the protagonists of Water over Stones span several decades of Spanish history, as Ugarte moves from the hazy summer of the 1972 Olympics, through the mining strikes of the turbulent Eighties, and into the modern day.
Water over Stones is an extraordinary novel of friendship, nature, love and the immensity of death. Once again, Atxaga shows his mastery in creating places and characters that are impossible to forget.
Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead and Margaret Jull-Costa
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Reviews
A brilliantly inventive writer
Atxaga holds the attention by his sheer craft, by the complete control he exhibits
Not just a Basque novelist but the Basque novelist
The most important Basque writer of his generation
A narrative steeped in poetry in which Atxaga has brilliantly combined reality and fiction
A dramatic story that captivates the reader from the first pages to its splendid ending
The reader will discover once again the great poetic power of Atxaga, and his incredible ability to build entire and profound universes
Atxaga knows how to entertain, move and give autobiography all the charm of fiction
A twisting and rewarding story, and one readers will savor until the lovely finish
Profound, luminous and strange. This is really a remarkable novel