I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Sola

Nestled among rugged mountains, in a remote part of Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, bandits, deserters, ghosts, beasts and demons, sits the old farmhouse called Mas Clavell. Inside, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed while family and caretakers drift in and out. All the women who have ever lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party.

As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of memories unspool, and the house reverberates with the women’s stories. Stories of mysterious visions, of those born without eyelashes and tongues or with deformed hearts. But it begins with the story of the matriarch Joana who double-crosses the devil, heedless of what the consequences might be.

I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness is a formally daring and entrancing novel in which Irene Sola explores the duality and essential link between light and darkness, life and death, oblivion and memory.

An earthy, bewitching and ferocious new novel by the author of When I Sing, Mountains Dance

About the Author: Irene Sola is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of the novels The Dams, When I Sing, Mountains Dance and I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Towards Darkness, and the poetry collection Beast.

Mara Faye Lethem is a writer, researcher and award-winning translator. Her recent translations include books by Irene Sola, Alana S. Portero, Jaume Cabre and Pol Guasch.

02 Sept 2025

I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Sola ISBN 9781803511382