WHEN I SING, MOUNTAINS DANCE

1960s. Domènec, a peasant and a poet, and Sió, his wife, a beautiful and determined girl, move to Matavaques, his country house, in an area of high mountains close to the border with France. During one of their customary walks, Domènec dies hit by lightning in the middle of a storm. Sió must carry on running the farm and the education of their children Mia and Hilari, who are still very young.

1970s. The children grow up a bit wild, due to their isolation as well as Sió’s attitude, as she can’t overcome the death of her husband. The local legends (water maidens, victims of the witch hunt of the Middle Ages and the memory still alive of the Republicans who went into exile just in this part of the world) and the landscape of the Pyrenees shape the imagination and sensibility of these children who have a wonderful friendship with a neighbor their age—the strong and mysterious Jaume.

End of 1980s. Hilari inherits his father’s interest in poetry; Mia is a responsible older sister. Time passes and Jaume and Mia enter into a relationship. The discovery of the world is also a discovery of their bodies. But one day, when they are just 20, Hilari and Jaume go hunting venison and Jaume accidentally kills Hilari. Condemned for gross negligence and consumed by guilt, Jaume cuts off all contact with Mia. When he get out of prison he never returns to the village.

Second decade of 2000s. Mia is a shy woman who lives with the only company of her dog Lluna. In her house there is a presence, a bad vibe that only her neighbor Neus will be able to expel for she is gifted. Neus’s daughter, Cristina, who used to observe Mia and Jaume when they went on their walks, is back in town after some years away and will try to help Mia exit the hole she has voluntarily locked herself up in all these years. One night where he has drunk too much at the bar where he works as a cook, Jaume runs over a venison with his car. When he realizes that the animal is still alive, he feels the impulse to go back to Matavaques to finally talk to Mia.

With an overflowing and contagious energy, Solà has written a tight novel with a beautiful prose full of textures and a daring game of points of views.