Learning to Talk to Plants

An immersive, moving novel about complex grief

Paula's partner has died in a car accident – but no one knows her true grief. Only hours before his death, Mauro revealed that he was leaving her for another woman.

Paula guards this secret and ploughs on with her job as a paediatrician in Barcelona, trying to maintain the outline of their old life. But all of Mauro's plants are dying, the fridge only contains expired yoghurt and her mind feverishly obsesses over this other, unknown woman.

As the weeks pass, vitality returns to Paula in unexpected ways. She remembers, slowly, how to live. By turns devastating and darkly funny, Learning to Talk to Plants is a piercingly honest portrayal of grief – and of the many ways to lose someone.



Marta Orriols is a Spanish writer living in Barcelona. She studied History of Art at university and later Screenwriting at the Bande à Part Film School in Barcelona and Creative Writing at the L'Escola d'Escriptura de l'Ateneu Barcelonès. Her second novel, Learning to Talk to Plants, won the Omnium Cultural Prize for the best Catalan novel.