Journeys and Flowers

A mesmerising and enigmatic collection of short stories, haunted by the horrors of war, and divided into two parts: journeys and flowers. A lone traveller with no endpoint in sight finds himself journeying through villages where the dead walk at solstice, silkworm-like women live in cocoons and a thousand men in gleaming armour play at being soldiers. Reality blurs, shimmers and darkens; unease grows. Stories of invented flowers follow and allow nature to bloom, vivid and intoxicating, to the fore. Absurd, lush and dreamlike, they capture different truths of humanity. In this collection, inventive force and lyrical power come together in a poetic voice of indelible magnetism to create a beguiling, uncanny world - and confirm Mercè Rodoreda as one of the greatest Catalan writers of the twentieth century.

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí (1908-1983) was raised in Barcelona. As a vocal supporter of Catalan literature, she was forced into exile at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Among the novels written during her exile was In Diamond Square, which has been translated into over thirty languages, and Death In Spring. Rodoreda was also a keen gardener, painter and poet. In 1972 she returned to Catalonia, where she spent her final years.