Hats off to the translator, because this book is a thing of beauty. "Under the fierce July sun Maria's pudding grew in her hands with the beauty that sometimes characterises evil things." Maria is six years old and making a mud tart full of live ants, decorated with sand and wild flowers. And Murcia's writing is enough to make you stop and catch your breath. It's a delightful book, characterised by evocative images and subtle personalities. The reader learns much, absorbed by the atmosphere of this complicit, tight community, about how right and wrong are dependent on the eye of the beholder. The story of growing awareness and a broadening perspective is not restricted to Maria. The rural landscape and way of life is traditional, charming and brutal. Maria and Bonaria Urrai grow to understand each other and their place in the unspoken culture of Sardinia in the 1950s. So Maria is a fill'e anima - a soul child.īonaria is the accabadora, the opposite to a midwife. A better life for the girl and for the lonely woman. Reviewer: JJ Marsh, author of The Beatrice Stubbs seriesīeautiful, magical, with a subtle evocation of island culture in a period gone by.įor a mother with too many daughters, it's a neat solution to make a bargain with a sterile woman.
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