Four by Four

Sara Mesa is the author of eleven works of fiction, including Scar, An Invisible Fire, Four by Four, Among the Hedges, Bad Handwriting, Un Amor (published by Peirene Press in 2024), The Family and Oposición. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages, and she has been widely praised for her concise, sharp writing style.

'Sara Mesa's writing is mysterious and fascinating: her characters brush against the limits in environments of fierce false calm. Un Amor is one of her best novels - tense and beautiful like a crouching bird.' – Mariana Enriquez'When I read Sara Mesa, I'm there in the Wild West, sifting through the sand. There is a restless enjoyment, an inhospitable beauty, in my sieve. And then something miraculous when gold appears before my eyes.' – Eva Baltasar'Sara Mesa sees the world through the lens of power, exploring how questions of strength and weakness shape human behaviour... Her writing has an unnerving force: with a single sentence, she can reveal the darkness at the heart of a situation like a lens sliding silently, suddenly into focus.’ – Annie McDermott, The TLS‘Sara Mesa’s deft control and economy of language shouldn’t come as a surprise. She’s a poet. Her nouns are razored. Her verbs are explosive … If you haven’t read her, you should. She won’t waste your time.’ – European Literary Review Mesa’s work is tense, intimate, and unsettling … we can’t look away.’ – Literary Hub