Longlisted for the 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for Translated Literature • “Evocative, dreamlike, and immersive…The disconcerting familiarity of this strange, windswept world will haunt you.” —EsquireA harrowing, intimate novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them teeters on the edge—marking an award-winning Latin American author’s US debut.In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed.
