The Wonders

'The Wonders is a poet's novel, delicate but strong, impressing its images firmly on the imagination.' - Hilary Mantel 'A mesmerizing read. Medel's prose is hypnotic, it's hard to believe this is her first novel. I was completely engrossed in this story, in the shadow each generation casts on the one that comes after it, in the tension between caring for oneself and caring for others' - Avni Doshi, author of the 2020 Booker Prize-Shortlisted Burnt Sugar 'Completely unsentimental and with a harshness that hides the most radiant and painful of scars... brings to life several generations of working women: it's a serene and impious novel that puts class, feminism, and the eternal complexity of family ties at the fore' - Mariana Enriquez, author of the International Booker Prize-shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed 'Full of brilliant moments of illumination... The effect of [the book's] fragmentation is to make of these individual women's lives a collective picture of working-class Spanish womanhood. With light touches Medel conveys gradual but tremendous change... it has a boldly ingenious structure and flashes of beauty' - The Guardian 'A beautifully written novel that examines the lives of three generations of working-class women living precariously in Madrid' - Stylist

Elena Medel was born in Crdoba in 1985 and lives in Madrid. She is the author of three poetry collections and two works of non-fiction. At 19 she founded the poetry publishing house La Bella Varsovia, one of the most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world. She is the recipient of the XXVI Loewe Prize for Young Poets, the Princess of Girona Foundation Arts and Literature Award 2016 for the whole of her work and the Francisco Umbral Prize for the Best Book Of The Year 2020. The Wonders is her first novel, and will be translated into thirteen languages.