El mar que te debía

The Sea I Owed You

Memories sustain us, feed us, gives us an identity and, occasionally, stifle us. During the Easter Week holidays, Virginia and her adolescent daughter travel by camping van from Hondarribia to Saint Henri, a coastal town of Landes, in southern France. Once there they come in contact with a bunch of fascinating characters all marked by memories: an elderly couple who share a secret, a doctor in an extramarital affair, members of a right-wing cell, an old pro-independence militant, a young flower seller girl in love and an indignant surfer, among others. Mother and daughter will take the reader on a journey across the world of personal relationships, with their fears and hopes. Once more, Mikel Alvira uses the recent history of Spain as a pretext to arouse feelings, to create an intense and quick-paced novel with a closing tour de force.