Burning Bones

WINNER OF THE TRANSLATION PRIZE LABORAL KUTXA – ETXEPARE 2023

'Miren Agur Meabe's poetic language shades and heightens the pulse of her writing, [adding] sensuality to the wound she writes of. Her way of looking elevates her raw, sincere voice to higher ground…' – Harkaitz Cano

'Miren Agur Meabe writes with about quiet worlds with tenderness and attention to detail, in a very sensual, almost synaesthetic way.' – Anna Blasiak, The Spanish Riveter

'a riveting and immersive read.' – Rhianon Holley, Buzz

In a series of short poetic narratives Burning Bones finds the writer on a remarkable journey of imagination, discovery and emotion.

We watch the gardener gather kindling to prepare a bonfire. 'So many branches,' I tell Gwen. 'They look like a pile of bones… I have a feeling that's what I'm doing too, carrying a bundle of bones from place to place. And I don't just mean the bones in my body.'

From a flooded river stranding a dolphin on a sandbank to a sailor afraid to venture onto land while a first kiss is cut tragically short Meabe plays with the expectations and form of stories while offering a rhapsody of reflection and reinvention.

Expertly translated into English by Amaia Gabantxo – arguably the most prestigious contemporary Basque to English translator – Burning Bones is a companion piece to Miren Agur Meabe's A Glass Eye, a collection of short stories that complement the universe of Meabe's novel about absence as an engine for creation, about what we make out of the things we lose – her eye, in the author's case, or love, or the innocence of youth.