Scar

Sonia meets Knut in an online literary forum and begins a unique long-distance relationship with him that becomes obsessive and derailed by excess. While her feelings toward him shift between attraction and repulsion, she can’t help but be fascinated by his unusual and perfectionist personality. He’s an intelligent young man of her same age who lives outside of all social norm and courts her through sumptuous stolen gifts, which include any book she could ever dream of. Her need to create distance when Knut becomes too absorbing, but also her unending curiosity, and a yearning to live experiences beyond a predictable existence, lead Sonia to begin a secret double life in which she will be trapped for several years without a chance to wipe the slate clean.

In this unprecedented story, Sara Mesa’s concise and electrifying style not only exposes the dynamics of a disquieting, imbalanced romantic relationship, it gives shape to an elegant, non-prescriptive reflection on consumer society and theft; power and submission; desire, guilt, and sexuality; fantasy as an alternative to intimacy; the vulnerability of childhood; and the formation of a budding writer. With Scar, Sara Mesa consolidates herself as one of the most original literary voices of her generation. Published in 2015 in Spain and Latin America, Scar has been highly praised by literary critics and will be translated into Italian and Dutch. It won the 2015 Ojo Critico award, from Spain’s National Public Radio, for Spanish fiction authors under forty.

© 2025 Dalkey Archive Press (Ebook): 9781628975925

Translators: Adriana Nodal-Tarafa

Release date

Ebook: 14 January 2025