Maria owns an eccentric business: her clients pay her to come up with ideas for presents. She spends her days thinking about how best to wrap up love. Nicola, her boyfriend, a wealthy pilot ready to settle down, seemed the perfect catch. But in this book, what is left unsaid is uncannily prominent. In fact, Nicola's anxiety turns into sharp body aches at night and a constant need to check Maria's phone messages. Maria never finds the keys to enter their apartment, nor the courage to leave it. After she killed her sister, 25 years ago, reproach in her mother's eyes is ever-present. But in 24 hours, an unexpected event turns everything upside down. Maria realises that she has a job she does not want, a partner she does not manage to leave and the power to decide who she wants to be. Thirsty Sea is a psychological portrait of all the insecurities and challenges of a young woman in a restless search for her own place in life.

Selected as one of the Books of the Year by the TLS

About the Author
Erica Mou (Apulia, 1990) studied Literature, Publishing and Journalism at the University of Bari. She is an Italian singer-songwriter with numerous international awards. Thirsty Sea, winner of the Readers Award of the Lungano Literary Festival 2020, is her debut novel. Erica wrote this book in the kitchen of her rented accommodation in London. Clarissa Botsford is a teacher, editor, literary translator, musician and Humanist celebrant living and working in Rome. About Thirsty Sea, she says: 'I was thrilled to be asked by Heloise Press to translate their first women-in-translation project, Thirsty Sea. It feels like such a perfect fit, touching on so many aspects of my own work: Erica Mou's prose is intrinsically musical, her narrator deeply human, with all her flaws, linguistic tics and curiosities, and her talent for turning life's questions back-to-front as a form of relentless self-accusation. Challenges for the translator are trip-wired into the text, and the author has often given me her own suggestions as to how to dodge her booby traps. She and the publisher have allowed me absolute freedom to adapt the text in order to preserve its intentions. It's hard to imagine anything better!'

Reviews
"Thirsty Sea displays Mou's flair for smartly subversive and musical prose, highly original characters and distinctive metaphors." Anna Katharina Schaffner, The Times Literary Supplement "Thirsty Sea continues a tradition of simultaneously confessional and elliptical writing by women that streches from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar to the fourth-wall busting, televisual crise de coeur Fleabag."; Laura Allsop;"Thirsty Sea is a deep dive into the female psyche. It is also a linguist's paradise." The Publishing Post;"Thirsty Sea is a total triumph of cognizance, a haunting presence in its own right." Asymptote;"A poetic, rhythmic and powerful tale of guilt, Thirsty Sea is a magnificient, compelling debut." Nataliya Deleva, author of Arrival;"Mou joins the ranks of contemporary female authors unafraid to delve into the uncomfortable and unsettling... a visceral exploration of trauma, relationships, family, grief and healing" Lunate



Book Information
ISBN 9781739751500
Author Erica Mou
Format Paperback
Imprint Heloise Press
Publisher Heloise Press