Institut Ramon LLull

When the novel opens, we find Mireia líving alone in her apartment in uptown Barcelona, spending her days spying on her neighbours and making her caretakers miserable. She hasn’t spoken to her son in years and her relationship to her daughter isn’t much better; the only person who seems to like her is her granddaughter Sònia.

As Mireia looks back on her long life from the final chapter, we learn of the events that shaped her, and how her marriage ended with a prison sentence. The well-paced narration constantly jumps between the present and the past, from the city to her small-town upbringing and other settings that Mireia’s desire to flee led her to, as details —a bottle of wine, a beauty mark, many scents— evoke her memories of a life marked by social pressures, love, violence, and the limited roles available to women. Arranged in three parts that move from the shadows to a garden in the sun, Mireia ultimately finds she no longer needs to keep running.