Institut Ramon LLull

An unnamed woman finds herself in an eddy of loss and desperation: twenty-seven years old and washed-up on the shores of our precarious 21st century society. It becomes clear how alone she is when she loses her rented room and her part-time job and has no family or friends to turn to. She ends up living on the street and reliant on the kindness of strangers. She discovers there are uninhabitable planets within our own. When she begins working as a cleaning lady, buffing other people’s home to a high shine, she enjoys them for herself as well... Until that too is taken from her.

This novel in two parts takes a fascinating turn: the first-person account continues as her former employer Maria re-enters the narrator’s life, insistently, and asking for forgiveness. The narrator’s scrubbing and polishing rise to a fever pitch, to the level of devotion, where horror and splendor coexist in a sacred and poetic embrace, and ardor prevails in a place beyond any possible eviction.