Primero estaba el mar

The young intellectuals J. and Elena abandon the parties, the drinking and the money of the city, and start a new life on a remote tropical coast. Among mango trees, hot sands and everlasting sunshine, they plan to live the Good Life, self-sufficient and close to nature.

But with each day come small defeats and imperceptible dramas. Gradually paradise turns into hell, as brutal weather, mounting debts, the couple's brittle relationship, and the sea itself threaten to destroy them.

Based on a true story, In the Beginning Was the Sea is a dramatic and searingly ironic account of the disastrous encounter of the imagined life with reality - a satire of hippyism, ecological fantasies, and of the very idea that man can control fate.

‘Taut, uncompromising study of the faultlines in all of us.’ Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Author of The Sound of Things Falling, IMPAC Prize 2014, The Guardian

‘A modern Colombian classic… Both a story about death and about practical objects.’ Financial Times

‘A novel that lingers.’ Four-star review in The Telegraph

‘The lauded Colombian novelist lives up to the hype… Extraordinarily evocative.’ The Independent

‘Smoothly intriguing narrative, with its touches of sinister, Patricia Highsmith-like menace’ Irish Times

‘A revelation (…) A book of exceptional intensity.’ Le Monde

‘Concentrated and perfect.’ Liberation

‘Tomás González is a storyteller of universal range.’ Die Zeit

‘Not a sad or depressing story, but an absolutely coherent and consistent, plausible, deeply human, even comforting one.’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung