Book review: When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà

John Duke from Unity Books Wellington reviews When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà, translated by Mara Faye Lethem, published by Allen & Unwin A prize-winning, spell-binding, polyphonic debut of love, wildness and tragedy that marks the generations - for readers of Sarah Baume and Max Porter. 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.