Cardiff in the late 1800s is grimy, crowded and grey, and Ellen, a domestic, dreams of escaping her dreary life there for the sea. When she falls in love with Samuel, a ship’s cook from Barbados, she is able to fulfil her fantasy by running away with him on a ship bound for the bright excitement of San Francisco.
Life at sea is brutal and dangerous, but it is a place where they can be free … until circumstances force Ellen home, and the hardships of working-class life and racism begin to poison their lives.
Salt is based on the lives of Kean’s great-grandparents, who married in 1878. It is their love story.
CATRIN KEAN was awarded a place on the Hay Festival Writers at Work scheme for emerging writers from 2016-18. Her short stories have been published in Riptide Journal, Bridge House Anthologies and The Ghastling. She awarded a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary in 2020, to work on her short story collection Fogtime. Salt is her first novel. She lives in Cardiff with her partner and two ridgeback dogs.