Garden By The Sea by Mercè Rodoreda

Considered to be the greatest Catalan writer. Her life story is in itself a novel having experienced exile during the Spainish Civil War. It will be interesting to discover how she infused her own experiences into her writing amidst the uncertainty and political upheaval of her era. This novel is about a gardener incharged of a villa inhabited by a rich young couple and their friends. This simple plot serves as the petri dish of which other profound meditations of humanity’s moral choices and actions are meticulously examined. The book as always is to be paired with elegant wines equally capable of conjuring the complexities of it’s terroir and origins.