Irene is 37 years old and just out of prison after serving time for terrorist activities. Deciding to return home to Bilbao, she takes a bus journey across Spain, striking up conversations with the passengers who include two plainclothes policemen. As the journey progresses, so the tension builds.

Bernardo Atxaga, a Basque, was born in 1951. He published his first work at the age of twenty in an anthology of Basque writers. He has written plays, children's books, radio scripts and novels, including Obabakoak, which has been published in fourteen languages including English, and won several prizes. His last novel, The Lone Man, was described by Peter Millar in The Times as a spellbinding, sympathetic odyssey into the mind of a former terrorist.

Margaret Jull Costa translated Obabakoak and The Lone Man. She is also translator of works by Javier Mar¿ (including A Heart so White which won the Dublin International Impac Award), Carmen Mart¿Gaite and Arturo P¿z-Reverte. Her translation of Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet made her joint-winner of the Portuguese translation prize.