Blog tour: Tasting Sunlight

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Welcome to the blog tour for Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz!

More about the book…

Teenager Sally has just run away from a clinic where she is to be treated for anorexia. She’s furious with everything and everyone, and wants to be left in peace. Liss is in her forties, living alone on a large farm that she runs single-handedly. She has little contact with the outside world, and no need for other people.

From their first meeting, Sally realises that Liss isn’t like other adults; she expects nothing of Sally and simply accepts who she is, offering her a bed for the night with no questions asked.

The first night lengthens into weeks as Sally starts to find pleasure in working with the bees, feeding the chickens, and harvesting potatoes. Eventually an unlikely friendship develops and these two damaged women slowly open up – connecting to each other, reconnecting with themselves, and facing the darkness in their pasts through their shared work on the land.

More about the author…

Ewald Arenz was born in Nurnberg in 1965, where he now teaches. He has won various national and regional awards for literature; among them the Bavarian State Prize for Literature and the great Nuremberg Prize for Literature. One of seven children, he enjoys nature, woodturning, biking, swimming, and drinking tea. He lives with his family in Germany.

My impressions…

Beautifully translated from the German by Rachel Ward, this novel is to be enjoyed with all the senses. You can hear the silence of the countryside, feel and taste freshly picked fruit, see the light of the morning sun and smell the earth. And if this magic communion with nature wasn’t enough, there is more magic to be witnessed in the developing friendship between two women belonging to different generations. This was a moving and hopeful story that will stay with me for a long time.

Three words to describe it. Heart-warming. Charming. Gentle.

Do I like the cover? Gorgeous. I feel its warmth every time I look at it!

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, I don’t think his books have been translated into English before. A good reason to start reading in German again!

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