Red Emma’s

The magnificent account of a year lived on Buda, a rural island in northern Spain, _The Last House Before the Sea _contemplates sprawling coastal marshes, flocks of nesting seabirds, and a relentless Atlantic horizon. Author and journalist Gabi Martínez stitches scenes of the natural world alongside the day-to-day lives of the island’s residents, many of whose families have called Buda home for generations. But something is beginning to imperil the age-old rhythms of eel fishing, rice farming, and the Ebro River’s flow to the coast. The delta, that fragile mouth that connects land and sea, is shifting.

Gabi Martínez is a prolific journalist, screenwriter, and author of both fiction and nonfiction books. His work has received numerous awards and has been translated into ten languages. The Last House Before the Sea was chosen as the best book of 2023 by the literary magazine WMagazine; a film adaptation is already in progress. El País has called him the “Delta Force of nature literature.” He is the director of the LiterNatura Festival (which received a UNESCO award, the Serondaya award, and the award granted by Biosphere Reserves to the best project in the Conservation of Natural and Cultural Heritage), a founding member of the Caravana Negra and Lagarta Fernández associations and of the Urban and Territorial Ecology Foundation; and the co-director of the Invisible Animals project. He lives in Barcelona, where he was born.