OLIVIA’S PICK

Writer-translator duo of my dreams returns for a third novel. It’s violent and searching and made me want to walk away from the city and not return. My must-read of 2024. -OP

Translated by Julia Sanches

The followup novel to International Booker-shortlisted Boulder is a story of queer motherhood and survival deep in the countryside

Mammoths protagonist is a disenchanted young lesbian. Shes inexperienced, irritated by life, eager to gestate, and determined to strip everything else down to essentials. She seduces men at random, swaps her urban habitat for an isolated farmhouse, befriends a shepherd, nurses lambs, battles stray cats, waits tables, cleans house, and dabbles in sex workall in pursuit of life in the raw.

This small bomb of a novel, not remotely pastoral, builds to a howling crescendo of social despair, leaving us at the mercy of Eva Baltasars wild voice.

Paperback | 144 pages | 5.10″ x 7.80″