The Search for Water

Name: The Search for Water
Price: 55 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781805332930

A Human History of Thirst

Virginia Mendoza, Thomas Bunstead (Translator)

$55

Hardback

Forthcoming
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Spanish

Pushkin Press
09 April 2026

Development studies; Hydrology & the hydrosphere; Human geography; The environment; Global warming

Virginia Mendoza's first memories are of drought. She grew up in La Mancha, Spain, the driest region in Europe. Her parents, grandparents, and almost every word, tool, and tradition of her homeland conveyed one conviction: without water, there is no life; without water, there is no civilization.

In The Search for Water, Mendoza weaves this personal reflection together with a dazzling scientific and anthropological enquiry into the ways the search for water has shaped the story of humanity. From flows of migration, agriculture and pagan rain gods to contemporary struggles with drought and climate change, Mendoza writes a gripping and inventive history of humankind as driven and united by one force: thirst.

By: Virginia Mendoza
Translated by: Thomas Bunstead (Translator)
Imprint: Pushkin Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781805332930
ISBN 10: 1805332937
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 09 April 2026
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Virginia Mendoza studied Journalism and Social and Cultural Anthropology. She works as a freelance journalist and has written for various media in Spain and Latin America, and she has published books on rootedness and uprooting in which she fuses narrative journalism and rural anthropology. The Search for Water, a hybrid of essay, historical anthropology and memoir, is currently being translated into three languages. Thomas Bunstead was born in London in 1982 and lives in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. He has translated leading Spanish-language writers, including Maria Gainza and Enrique Vila-Matas, and won various awards, including an O. Henry Prize and the 2024 Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation.