Water over Stones

Bernardo Atxaga

"A brilliantly inventive writer" A.S. BYATT

"The most important Basque writer of his generation" Times Literary Supplement


A story of intertwining lives that like water run between stones.

From a boy robbed of the power of speech and the friends he makes 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 her people navigate the silences secrets joys and tragedies of their lives.

Water over Stones is an extraordinary novel of friendship nature love and the immensity of death. Once again Bernardo 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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