As climate change tilts the scale of a fragile coexistence and rising waves threaten to swallow fields and farmhouses, locals must reconcile their past with their future—both beholden to a landscape that grows more endangered with each passing day.
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.