Ultramarine

The metaphysically disorienting tale of a female captain who loses control of her thinking—and her crew—aboard a cargo ship in the Atlantic.

Ultramarine begins when the female captain agrees to let her crew stop the engines and go for a swim. But when they return, the crew of mariners is not the original 20, but 21. When the ship itself begins behaving strangely, a haunting question emerges: is she hallucinating, or is this real?

The beauty of language comes first in Ultramarine. Navarro's novel pays gorgeous attention to the way the language can mimic the rocking of the boat, the way imagery can convey the vastness of the sea. Brilliant psychological suspense and extraordinary poetry lingers in every word, every sentence.

Navarro has penned a poetic and profound novel that plummets the listener into the psychological realm as well as strikingly deft, restrained and lucidly lyrical prose and pared-down dialogue. In Eve Hill-Agnus's translation, Mariette Navarro establishes herself as an exciting, mature voice in French literature.