Salt Picnic

It is 1956, and Iola lands on Ibiza, on the margins of Franco's Spain, with hardly more than a Spanish phrasebook. She has a sense that she is searching for something on the island. She soon meets an American who says he is a photographer, a man she can never quite pin down, and who questions her about a German doctor. When the doctor appears, he takes her to eat on a small island of salt, and there she discovers how little it takes to hide what is real. Drawing on the months Janet Frame spent on Ibiza that year, the novel deals with misunderstanding across languages, make-believe and the long reach of political creeds.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Spain, 1956

First published

2017

ISBN

9781776561698 (Victoria University Press, New Zealand)