“Solà's kaleidoscopic technique vividly evokes a landscape dense with violence and beauty. . . . The overlapping, multifaceted points of view serve to deepen and enrich the human struggles, which, far from being muted, are rendered instead more urgent, more moving by being inextricably linked to the region's natural history and its past. A masterfully written, brilliantly conceived book that combines depth and breadth superbly.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review 

Solà’s prose, excellently translated from the original Catalan, is expansive and tactile. Her sentences accumulate, running along, taking in as much as possible, senses alert: “When I was in the forest, far from those who carry you off and shriek, I filled my mouth with fresh sprouts and living water, and I filled my nose with all the smells, and my eyes with all the beautiful things, and I thought about my mother and my brother.” —Christopher Shrimpton, The Guardian

Near a village high in the Pyrenees, Domènec wanders across a ridge, fancying himself more a poet than a farmer, to “reel off his verses over on this side of the mountain.” He gathers black chanterelles, attends to a troubled cow. And then storm clouds swell, full of electrifying power. Reckless, gleeful, they release their bolts of lightning, one of which strikes Domènec. He dies. The ghosts of seventeenth-century witches gather around him, taking up the chanterelles he’d harvested before going on their merry ways. So begins this novel that is as much about the mountains and the mushrooms as it is about the human dramas that unfold in their midst.

When I Sing, Mountains Dance, winner of the European Union Prize, is a giddy paean to the land in all its interconnectedness, and in it Sola finds a distinct voice for each extraordinary consciousness: the lightning bolts, roe-deer, mountains, the ghosts of the civil war, the widow Sió and later her grown children, Hilari and Mia, as well as Mia’s lovers with their long-buried secrets and their hidden pain.

Irene Solà animates the polyphonic world around us, the fierce music of the seasons, as well as the stories we tell to comprehend loss and love on a personal, historical, and even geological scale. Lyrical, elemental, and mythic, hers is a fearlessly imaginative new voice that brilliantly renders both our tragedies and our triumphs.
 

Irene Solà's US Tour:

March 15: Community Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY) + Third Place Books (Seattle, WA) event, w/ Mara Faye Lethem, moderated by Ethan Nosowsky – event recording here

April 10 @ 1:00 PM ET: White Whale Bookstore (Pittsburgh, PA) – virtual event, registration link TK

April 16 @ 1:00 PM PT: Elliott Bay Book Co (Seattle, WA) – virtual event, register here

May 1 @ 12:00 PM PT: Point Reyes Books (Point Reyes, CA) – virtual event, register here

In-Person Events

April 24 @ 12:00 PM PT: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books with Xochitl Gonzalez and Gabriela Garcia, moderated by Dorany Pienda (Los Angeles, CA) – details here

May 7 – May 8: Bay Area Book Festival (San Francisco, CA) – date + program details TK

May 15 @ 7:00 PM ET: Old Town Books (Arlington, VA) – event link TK

Stay tuned, more events to be confirmed shortly!

Irene Solà's US tour has been organized by Graywolf Press.