-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A perceptive, moving novel about life and death in the Basque Country, from the author of Nevada Days.
Bernardo Atxaga's Water Over Stones follows a group of interconnected people in a small village in the Basque Country. It opens with the story of a young boy who has returned from his French boarding school to his uncle's bakery, where his family hopes he will speak again. He's been silent since an incident in which he threw a stone at a teacher for reasons unknown. With the assistance of twin brothers who take him to a river in the forest, he'll recover his speech. As the years pass, those twins, now adults, will be part of a mining strike in the Ugarte region, and so take up the mantle of the narrative, just as others will after them.
Water Over Stones is similar in nature to Atxaga's earlier books Obabakoak and The Accordionist's Son, as it weaves in themes of friendship, nature, and death. Yet in capturing a span of time from the early 1970s, when the shadow of the Franco dictatorship still loomed, to 2017, when these boys must learn to leave their old beliefs behind and move on, Atxaga finds new richness and depth in familiar subjects. As threads of water run over stones in the river, so these lives run together, and, over time, technology and industry bring new changes as the wheel of life turns.
"[A] remarkable and sprawling story of a friendship over five decades in the Basque country...As the years go on, an intricate study emerges of what it means for the characters to rely on each other as they grow older. It's a twisting and rewarding story, and one readers will savor until the lovely finish." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Atxaga inspires trust from the reader through his authorial command. There is indeed a method to the madness and an unexpected payoff that meaningfully reframes the entire book. A quietly remarkable offering from the first name in Basque literature." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This information about Water over Stones was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bernardo Atxaga is a prizewinning author whose books, including Nevada Days, Seven Houses in France, and The Accordionist's Son, have won international critical acclaim. His works have been translated into thirty-two languages. He lives in the Basque Country.
Margaret Jull Costa is the award-winning translator of José Saramago, Javier Marías, Eça de Queiroz, and Fernando Pessoa. She is the translator of Bernardo Atxaga's The Accordionist's Son, Nevada Days, Obabakoak, and Seven Houses in France.
If you liked Water over Stones, try these:
by Ruben Reyes
Published 2025
From the author of There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, a piercing debut novel following two families in alternative timelines of the Salvadoran civil war—a stunning exploration of the mechanisms of fate, the gravity of the past, and the endurance of love.
by Gianrico Carofiglio
Published 2022
A coming-of-age novel—a heady union of Before Sunrise and Beautiful Ruins—about a father and his teenage son who are forced to spend two sleepless nights exploring the city of Marseilles, a journey of unexpected adventure and profound discovery that helps them come to truly know each other.
by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Published 2020
This unforgettable memoir from a prize-winning poet about growing up undocumented in the United States recounts the sorrows and joys of a family torn apart by draconian policies and chronicles one young man's attempt to build a future in a nation that denies his existence.
To win without risk is to triumph without glory
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
