Water over Stones

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