A woman returns time and again to the same places: a house facing the sea, a body that never quite feels at home, a memory that refuses to let go.

With precise and remarkably lucid prose, When I’m older, I want to be a house, sketches an emotional map from childhood to adulthood, from the sea to hospitals, from the family to bodily desires, always returning to places that are both refuge and wound. Written in vibrant, uncompromising language, this novel is also a reflection on what it means to inhabit a place, a body, and your own story in a shared world.

“The fear of ending up alone has accompanied me for as long as I can remember.”

“It is easier to live as a dead woman than to die.”

“Nowadays, when you say you live on the seafront everyone thinks you’re rich. Because the sea isn’t ours anymore.”