Boulder

Shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize

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 cannot bear to let the opportunity pass her by. Boulder is less enthused but does not 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 preeminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world—and in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.