Institut Ramon LLull

This is the story of Ada, a twenty-something woman who’s been living in London for three years and returns for the summer to her small town in rural Catalonia. Ada turns her cinematic eye to the world she left behind, filled with big moons, shooting stars, tractors and peaches, as well as animals, violence and death. Ada writes stories that are inset within the story of that summer, alongside memories of her brother’s coming out, her parents’ divorce and the easy romance she resumes with a young man from a local farming family.

Sola’s prose draws on randomness and instinct, juxtaposing tradition and experimentation. Ada’s voice is gentle, languid and wise beyond its years as it contemplates aspects of rural life in the 21st century, three generations of her family and the power the storyteller has over the story, which she wields benevolently. Structured over four months, the last of which is composed of photographs that serve as supporting evidence, Sola plays with techniques of linguistic contention (hence the dikes of the title) that hold the bedlam of life in check until, inevitably, the banks overflow.