Permafrost

Permafrost's no-bullshit lesbian narrator is an uninhibited lover and a wickedly funny observer of modern life. Desperate to get out of Barcelona, she goes to Brussels, ‘because a city whose symbol is a little boy pissing was a city I knew I would like'; as an au pair in Scotland, she develops a hatred of the color green. And everywhere she goes, she tries to break out of the roles set for her by family and society, chasing escape wherever it can be found: love affairs, travel, thoughts of suicide.

Full of powerful, physical imagery, this prize-winning debut novel by acclaimed Catalan poet Eva Baltasar was a word-of-mouth hit in its own language. It is a breathtakingly forthright call for women's freedom to embrace both pleasure and solitude, and speaks boldly of the body, of sex, and of the self.

Editorial Reviews

"Permafrost crackles and sparks with observations about living, family, and desire that are wry, searing, funny, and full of love for the love of women. A potent shot to be swallowed whole."―Saskia Vogel

"Forthright, fearless and funny, with a no-messing narrator, this is a maximal reading experience."―Wendy Erskine

"Reading Eva Baltasar's Permafrost is like having a rug continuously pulled out from under you until finally the rug disappears. How can a novel that orbits suicide be so surprising, so intensely liberating and funny, and at the same time, so full of grief? That is its genius."―Amina Cain

"Permafrost is a discomfiting book about a sensual intoxication with life that just barely contains the desire for it to be over and done with forever. Like a perfect song, Eva Baltasar's words, as translated by Julia Sanches, have a sheen and inevitability that I won't soon forget. It held me in a trance."―Catherine Lacey

"An explosively witty, intense novel about freedom, desire and the body ― Baltasar's voice is as bracing and sharp as cold mountain air, and her queer exploration of being and intimacy is intoxicating. Raw, fresh and uncompromising new writing."―Rebecca Tamás

"Released from my annual dose of Bernhard, I usually feel a need for more and I usually do not have anything dark enough to hand. But this time I did - Permafrost by Eva Baltasar."―Imma Monsó

"A magma of sensations, doubts and aspirations. A trove of treasures. The piquancy of this novel, a surprise word-of-mouth hit in Spain, comes from the gap between the fantasies projected onto the narrator by the women around her––who see in her a free and contented woman––and the suffocating feeling constricting her. "––Le Monde

"Eva Baltasar debuts as a novelist with a high voltage book about the self, the body, sex and the family. One of the books of the year."―La Vanguardia

"The discovery of the year"―Time Out

"Breathtaking, intense, poetic."―ABC

"A cold but fiery lucidity, admirable, in its approach to detail."―El Mundo/El Cultural

"Baltasar handles feelings as radioactive material, that is, as something that kills and illuminates us."―Babelia/El País

"Baltasar describes how you didn't think it could be ...