A ferociously imaginative, polyphonic debut: amid the rugged beauty of the Pyrenees, the mountains' inhabitants - both human and non-human - bear witness to the tragedies that befall one family

"Solà pushes past the limits of human experience to tell a story of instinct and earth-time that is irresistible in its jagged glory." - C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills is Gold When Domenec - mountain-dweller, father, poet, dreamer - dies suddenly, struck by lightning, he leaves behind two small children, Mia and Hilari, to grow up wild among the looming summits of the Pyrenees and the ghosts of the Spanish civil war. But then Hilari dies too, and his sister is forced to face life's struggles and joys alone. As the years tumble by, the inhabitants of the mountain - human, animal and other - come together in a chorus of voices to bear witness to the sorrows of one family, and to the savage beauty of the landscape. This remarkable English-language debut is lyrical, mythical, elemental, and ferociously imaginative.

"Solà's prose, excellently translated from the original Catalan, is expansive and tactile. Her sentences accumulate, running along, taking in as much as possible, senses alert... Solà convincingly implicates everyone in the quickening pace of history and environmental decline... this attentive, playful, responsive novel makes an excellent case for stopping and listening" - Guardian

"Mara Faye Lethem's translation magnificently preserves the dreamy, haunting tone of the original... [and] Solà's distinctive lyricism... When I Sing, Mountains Dance illuminates the delicate, mutable relationship we have to the places that dictate how we understand ourselves" - TLS