FICTION

Hailstones Fell Without Rain

Natalia Figueroa Barroso

UQP, $34.99

In life and in literature, revolution and resistance are often depicted as hallmarks of youth: founts of idealism that are eventually abandoned – not always reluctantly – in pursuit of stability, safety and financial security.

But for the characters of Natalia Figueroa Barroso’s debut – the first novel published by a Uruguayan-Australian author – revolution and resistance are the hallmarks of the only life worth living, and the only means of freedom from the persistent inequalities of racism, capitalism and patriarchy.

The book follows three generations of Ferreira women across two continents and two time periods. Told between present-day Fairfield, in Sydney’s west, and 1970s Uruguay, where a civic-military

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