Permafrost

Permafrost's no-bullshit lesbian narrator is an uninhibited lover, a no-hope employee, and a some-time suicidal student of her own dislocated self. As she tries to break out of the roles set for her by a controlling, overprotective mother, a relentlessly positive sister, and a society which imposes a gut-wrenching pressure to conform, she contemplates the so-called will to live when that life is given, rather than chosen. Attempting to bridge the gap between the perennially frozen reaches of her outer shell and the tender core of her being, watching her relationships with family fracture and her many lovers come and go, the protagonist's reservations about staying alive become ever more pressing. Passionate, urgent and breathtakingly forthright, this fiction debut from Catalan poet Eva Baltasar was a word-of-mouth hit in its own language and is a gift for readers in English.

Eva Baltasar has published ten volumes of poetry which have received widespread recognition and numerous awards. Her debut work of fiction, Permafrost, received the 2018 Premi Llibreter (Catalan Booksellers Award) and is the first novel in a triptych which aims to explore the universes of three different women in the first person. The author lives a simple life with her wife and two daughters in a village near the mountains.