Boulder

Eva Baltasar, Julia Sanches

From Shelf: International Booker prize 2023 Longlist

The grim and lovely follow-up to Eva Baltasar's acclaimed Permafrost explores the darker sides of love and motherhood for two women determined to live as they like.

Working as a cook on a merchant ship, a woman comes to know and love Samsa, a woman who gives her the nickname 'Boulder'. When Samsa gets a job in Reykjavik and the couple decides to move there together, Samsa decides that she wants to have a child. She is already forty and can't bear to let the opportunity pass her by. Boulder is less enthused, but doesn't know how to say no - and so finds herself dragged along on a journey that feels as thankless as it is alien. With motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie, and whether her yearning for freedom can truly trump her yearning for love. Once again, Eva Baltasar demonstrates her pre-eminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world - and in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.