Eva Piquer

A tough and moving exploration of the pain of loss, with a bright, optimistic ending.

Setè Cel Award 2024

On 21 November 1973, an American plane is flying over Iceland on a routine mission when suddenly the engines begin to fail in the midst of a tremendous snowstorm. Thanks to the skill of a young pilot named Gregory Fletcher, the plane avoids the ice fields and manages to make a forced landing on a beach of black sand, saving the entire crew.

Fifty years later, in Barcelona, a middle-aged woman is plunged into mourning after the devastating loss of a loved one. Intrigued by the case of the crashed plane, whose remains still lie on the black sand beach today, the woman contacts a now mature Gregory Fletcher to find out all she can about that miraculous exploit, before herself traveling to Iceland to visit the crash site.

This is the intimate story of two crash landings and two survivors: a hero with hardly any flight hours and a woman who manages to rebuild her life and fly again.

“A metaphor about learning to keep persevering after suffering a tragedy.” La Vanguardia

“Aterratge flees vulgar introspection and the most egocentric self-reference to propose a reflection on survival as both a personal and collective experience.” El País

“Free of convenient literary devices and clichés, and fleeing from melodrama, Eva Piquer’s restrained and intelligent writing takes us into the private world of a broken woman in which we become the privileged witnesses of her reconstruction.” Ara