3. Barbados

1880s Cardiff is grimy, rainy and grey. Ellen works as a domestic and dreams of escaping her claustrophobic home life. When her brother returns home from his latest stint at sea, he introduces Ellen to Samuel, a ship's cook from Barbados. When Samuel asks her to be his wife, it's the beginning of a love story that will see them journey across the ocean to San Francisco and Barbados, and which will force them to confront the realities of poverty and racism.

Salt was the winner of the 2021 Wales Book of the Year Award, the 2021 Rhys Davies Fiction award, and the Wales Arts Review People's Choice Award. It was Catrin Kean's debut novel. Writing as Catrin Clarke, she won a BAFTA Cymru award for screenwriting in 2003 for her work on the BBC Wales drama Belonging. Her second novel, Lace, was published in 2024.

Read by Kezrena James
Abridged by Miranda Davies
Editing and Sound Design by Mair Bosworth
Mixed by Ilse Lademann

Produced by Fay Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol