Reading guide: Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches
Discover our reading guide for Boulder, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, a love story between two women with very different visions of motherhood
Eva Baltasar demonstrates her pre-eminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world - in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.
Working as a cook on a merchant ship, a woman comes to know and love Samsa, who gives her the nickname ‘Boulder’. When the couple decide to move to Reykjavik together, Samsa announces that she wants to have a child. She is already 40 and can’t bear to let the opportunity pass her by.
Boulder is less enthused but doesn’t know how to say no - and so finds herself dragged along on a journey that feels as thankless as it is alien. With motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie, and whether her yearning for freedom will trump her yearning for love.
Boulder was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, announced on April 18, 2023.
Eva Baltasar
About the Author
Eva Baltasar is an author and poet who has published ten volumes of poetry, to widespread acclaim.
Julia Sanches
About the Translator
Julia Sanches has translated works from Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan.Watch our films
Boulder is a sensuous, sexy, intense book. Eva Baltasar condenses the sensations and experiences of a dozen more ordinary novels into just over 100 pages of exhilarating prose. An incisive story of queer love and motherhood that slices open the dilemmas of exchanging independence for intimacy.
