Helena, or the Sea in Summer

First English translation of a 1952 Spanish masterpiece by an award-winning translator, this Spanish classic evokes the childhood transition to adolescence. .,. Aunt Josefina’s fat white legs under the water; a child standing on a grown-up’s shoulders and plunging into the waves; eating lunch on the beach, the food gritty with sand; a late afternoon swim in the delicious water; getting changed behind the rocks, shivering in the suddenly cold wind; then walking home singing and picking sun-warm blackberries