When I Sing, Mountains Dance

“A ferociously imaginative, polyphonic debut: amid the rugged beauty of the Pyrenees, the mountains’ inhabitants – both human and non-human – bear witness to the tragedies that befall one family

“”Sola pushes past the limits of human experience to tell a story of instinct and earth-time that is irresistible in its jagged glory.”” – C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills is Gold

When Domenec – mountain-dweller, father, poet, dreamer – dies suddenly, struck by lightning, he leaves behind two small children, Mia and Hilari, to grow up wild among the looming summits of the Pyrenees and the ghosts of the Spanish civil war.

But then Hilari dies too, and his sister is forced to face life’s struggles and joys alone. As the years tumble by, the inhabitants of the mountain – human, animal and other – come together in a chorus of voices to bear witness to the sorrows of one family, and to the savage beauty of the landscape. This remarkable English-language debut is lyrical, mythical, elemental, and ferociously imaginative.”